GENDER AND THE HOMOEROTIC LOGIC OF TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

A Dissertation

by

RYAN ASHLEY CALDWELL

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

August 2007

Major Subject: Sociology

GENDER AND THE HOMOEROTIC LOGIC OF TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

A Dissertation

by

RYAN ASHLEY CALDWELL

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved by:

Chair of Committee, Stjepan G. Mestrovic Committee Members, Don E. Albrecht William A. McIntosh John J. McDermott Head of Department, Mark Fossett

August 2007

Major Subject: Sociology

iii

ABSTRACT

Gender and the Homoerotic Logic of Torture at Abu Ghraib.

(August 2007)

Ryan Ashley Caldwell, B.A., Austin College;

M.A., Texas Tech University

Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Stjepan G. Mestrovic

The focus of this dissertation is a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by

American forces. I provide the following: an examination of the photographs of abuse that were leaked to the press in the fall of 2003; an analysis of both Lynndie England’s and Sabrina Harman’s courts-martial (two of the “rotten apples”); a discussion of the body associated with punishment and torture, and also as marked in ways of identification; and an assessment of additional representations regarding prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Throughout this analysis, I use gender as a lens to understand Abu

Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial. It is important to note that I gained access to and was intimately involved as a graduate researcher for Dr. Stjepan G. Mestrovic, an expert for the defense, and experienced the events of the trials themselves, first-hand and during closed counsel and open session.

The empirical data provided is drawn primarily from first-hand qualitative research that involved participant-observation of two trials, interaction with soldiers and iv

officers, and analysis of both documents pertaining to the trial as well as the photographs of abuse themselves, among other things. I incorporate cultural studies, feminist and sociological theory (modern and postmodern), and feminist philosophy so as to provide a theoretical analysis of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial focused on gender and sexuality.

The result of this dissertation is a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by

American forces, where women, gender, and sexuality are shown to be important criteria for examination. Specifically, the results of this project highlight areas that current analyses of the abuse at Abu Ghraib have left out: how women fit into American military politics, how gender functions as power within the military, how gender is socially constructed in the military in terms of heterosexuality, and how both gender and sexuality are used as weapons by the American military. This kind of examination is useful in future policy considerations for the military and for detainee treatment, where analyses of women, gender, sexuality, and power have been so far neglected in any serious way, and even by sociologists Phillip Zimbardo and the application of his

Stanford Prison Study to the events of Abu Ghraib.

v

DEDICATION

The following project is dedicated to my family and friends who have helped me lovingly realize my dream imagined, and to my mentor Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic for his tireless advising and friendship.

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Deep thanks are due to my family and friends for the emotional support needed to complete this manuscript. I could not have finished this without all of you. I would especially like to thank my mother, Lynn Slaughter, for her unwavering belief and confidence in me, and for the always free room and board. Also, many thanks to my father, William Caldwell, and to my brother and his wife, Thomas and Emily Caldwell, for having faith in me and my project.

Tom Slaughter, thanks for all of your encouragement and also for putting up with my many pets and their perpetual “gifts.” Additionally, I would like to thank Don Albrecht, Alex McIntosh,

John McDermott and especially Stjepan Mestrovic. In the future, I can only hope to be the kind of professor that these gentlemen demonstrated through their interactions with me. Mestrovic and McDermott, I am so honored that you were a part of this process and your fingerprints are all over my writing, theorizing, and professional work. Keith Kerr, I thank you deeply for your friendship and your camaraderie. I would also like to recognize my many mentors along the way: Rod Steward, Mark Hebert, Karann Durland, Alice Sowaal, Mark Webb, Ed Averill, and

Joseph Ransdell. Many thanks to Tony Carroll for helping me keep my mind and wits about me and to RZA for dealing with the previous when they were a mess.

This dissertation is presented in memory of Jean Baudrillard, with whom I had always hoped to work with before his untimely passing. Unfortunately, I have only experienced a taped-version of one of Baudrillard’s lectures, and in typical postmodern fashion given the poor production of the video, there were no visual images and only barely audible sound.

Finally, many thanks to my beloved pets for keeping me company during the past 15 years of my formal education, curled up at my feet, always cheering me on and providing companionship with their presence, both seen and unseen.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT...... iii

DEDICATION ...... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS...... vii

LIST OF FIGURES...... ix

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

2. IT WAS NOT LUCIFER ACHIEVED: ZIMBARDO, WOMEN, AND ABU

GHRAIB...... 19

2.1 Zimbardo’s Prison Study...... 21 2.2 Milgram and the Absence of Authority Figures...... 25 2.3 Back to Zimbardo and Abu Ghraib...... 36 2.4 Cultural Code of Masculinity...... 39

3. GENDER, POWER, AND THE “RATIONALIZATION” OF RATIONALITY:

USES OF THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE SYMBOLIC NARRATIVES ...... 53

3.1 The Enlightenment Project and Rationality ...... 54 3.2 The Prison: Abu Ghraib ...... 57 3.3 Foucault and Power...... 68 3.4 Durkheim...... 83 3.5 Moving Beyond Foucault’s Continuum of Punishment and Cruelty...... 86 3.6 The “Rationalization” of Rationality...... 90

4. ABU GHRAIB, PARSONIAN GENDER ROLES, AND COURTS-

MARTIAL EXPERIENCES ...... 94

4.1 Instrumental and Expressive ...... 95 4.2 Meeting With the Defense Attorney: September 21, 2005, The Trial of Lynndie England ...... 99 viii

Page

4.3 Instrumental Responsibility: September 22, 2005, Courts-Martial of Lynndie England ...... 105 4.4 Expert Witnesses: Instrumental Help to the Rescue, September 27, 2005, Courts-Martial of Lynndie England ...... 110 4.5 Expressive Harman and Instrumental Crimes, May 16, 2005, Courts- Martial of Sabrina Harman...... 114 4.6 Gilligan and the Pyramid: Instrumental and Expressive Torture...... 124

5. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IDENTITY SIMULACRA AND GENDER

HYPERREALITY: AMERICAN MILITARY AND THE CASE OF ABU

GHRAIB...... 134

5.1 Identity and Signification as Hyperreal Simulacra: Maps and the “Metrosexual Soldier”...... 139 5.2 “Power-Simulacra” and Gender Categories...... 146 5.3 Seduction and Drag ...... 152 5.4 The Simulacra of Gender at Abu Ghraib and the Courts-Martial ...... 160

6. REPRESENTATIONS OF ABU GHRAIB AND IMAGES OF POWER IN

RELATION TO GENDER ...... 173

6.1 Botero’s Abu Ghraib ...... 174 6.2 Botero and the Suffering of Women ...... 183 6.3 Interpretations of Abu Ghraib Images...... 193 6.4 Fashionable Torture and the “Use-Value” of Women ...... 198

7. CONCLUSIONS...... 208

REFERENCES...... 213

VITA ...... 228 ix

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE Page

1 YMCA (wall), Ft. Hood, TX (Caldwell, 2005)...... 41

2 YMCA (window), Ft. Hood, TX (Caldwell, 2005)...... 41

3 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Panties on Head” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)...... 68

4 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Fear of Dogs” ……………...... 69

5 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Fear of Dogs 2” …………...... 70

6 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Detainee Mental Abuse”…...... 81

7 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Simulacra of Abuse”………...... 82

8 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Rapeist”…………………...... 83

9 Abu Ghraib Prison, “Sabrina Harman smiling over the body of Manadel Al Jamadi (Tentatively identified as of May 20, 2004) ...... 88

10 Harman Tattoo, “Rotten Apple 6”...... 170

11 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #43, (Botero 2005, #43)……………… 176

12 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #56, (Botero 2005, #56)...... 177

13 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #56b, (Botero 2005, #56b)...... 177

14 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #43b, (Botero 2005, #43b)...... 178

15 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” “bra and panties,” (Botero 2005)... 179

16 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” “sodomy,” (Botero 2005)...... 181

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FIGURE Page

17 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #6, (Botero 2004, #6)……………. 181

18 Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #46, (Botero 2005, #46)………….. 181

19 Lynndie England Leash Photograph ...... 189

20 11:01 p.m., Nov. 4, 2003. Detainee with bag over head, standing on box with wires attached...... 193

21 12:38 a.m., Oct. 18, 2003. Detainee cuffed to the entrance of the wing. Photo taken from the second tier, Abu Ghraib…………………...... 194

22 Image from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” second analysis of “bra and panties”, (Botero 2005)...... 194

23 Photograph #1 by Antonin Kratochvil in his collection entitled “A Homage to Abu Ghraib”……………………………………………… 196

24 Photograph #2 by Antonin Kratochvil in his collection entitled “A Homage to Abu Ghraib”………………………………………………. 197

25 The photo-essay "State of Emergency" (#1) by Steven Meisel, September '06 issue of Vogue Italia...... 199

26 The photo-essay "State of Emergency" (#2) by Steven Meisel, September '06 issue of Vogue Italia...... 200

1

1. INTRODUCTION

The focus of this dissertation is a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by

American forces. I provide the following: an examination of the photographs of abuse that were leaked to the press in the fall of 2003; an analysis of both Lynndie England’s and Sabrina Harman’s courts-martial (two of the “rotten apples”); a discussion of the body associated with punishment and torture, and also as marked in ways of identification; and an assessment of additional representations regarding prisoner abuse at

Abu Ghraib. Throughout this analysis, I use gender as a lens to understand Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial. The empirical data provided is drawn primarily from first-hand qualitative research that involved participant-observation of two trials, interaction with soldiers and officers, and analysis of both documents pertaining to the trial as well as the photographs of abuse themselves, among other things. I see this project located at the intersection of sociology, social and cultural theory, women’s

studies, and critical theory. Consequently, I incorporate cultural studies, feminist and

sociological theory (modern and postmodern), and feminist philosophy so as to provide a theoretical analysis of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial focused

on gender and sexuality.

Over the last 20-30 years, gender has become an important focus for analysis in

the social sciences. Feminists, gender and social theorists, and those concerned with

women’s issues, have analyzed society and culture using gender as a focus for understanding many different phenomena. In these cases, gender is understood as something that is socially constructed, meaning it is a category that is defined in terms of

2 a cultural context, where “masculinity” and “femininity” are conceived of differently within different contexts. In the social sciences and in feminist theory, for example, there is a strict conceptual separation of sex, gender, and sexuality categories when theorizing categories for gender.

However, what is important to understand is that gender conceptualizations have a limiting effect in that there are strict rules for gender, and are real consequences within these specific cultural contexts for not performing gender correctly. Moreover, within

cultural contexts, gender is used to organize society and culture such that gender

functions as a kind of ideology. Likewise, gender is understood as one component of an intersected identity, where race, class, cultural identification, sexual orientation, religion, etc., function as additional characteristic schema, where power is coupled with gender to provide an understanding of identity. The social construction of gender thus delineates the boundaries for both “masculinity” and “femininity,” and I argue that gender categories are understood with regard to power or a “code” in their constructions.

Social construction is a theoretical concept used to understand and explain social reality, and I take it as a theoretical presupposition that individuals experience a shared sense of reality that is itself socially constructed in terms of power differentials. By this,

I mean that what individuals and society perceive and understand as “reality” is a product of the social interactions of individuals and groups with others, as well as with the previously established “reality” that has been beforehand socially objectified. Through

these interactions, people continually create a shared reality experience, thereby

ultimately establishing a shared social epistemology. Social constructionists work to

3 document and analyze the processes through which social reality is constructed, and how that constructed reality begins to work back upon society itself.

However, within this socially constructed system of “reality,” there is a dilemma

regarding what counts as “reality.” It is argued that individuals or groups in positions of

power influence what comes to be socially regarded as “real,” thereby dictating reality in

terms of a specific viewpoint. Social control is established in terms of this kind of

inequitable socially constructed reality, thereby allowing the generated norms, taboos,

expectations, social roles, etc., to be understood in terms of this privileged viewpoint.

This is problematic for those individuals who are not socially powerful in that it has the

consequence of “silencing” their minority experiences. Thus, through the process of

socially creating an objective “reality,” experiences of those with little or no social power

are not fully represented in that the created “objective reality” is biased towards the

socially powerful.

Given the problem of the biased social construction of reality, feminists aim to

understand and uncover the ways in which members of society come to know and

simultaneously create “social reality,” so as to identify and expand on the ways in which

women come to be represented within society. Feminists argue against a phallocentric

ordering of society, which privileges the socially powerful male subjectivity, and argue

for the equality of the sexes. Additionally, feminists make a case for the realization of

representations of women’s diverse experiences given the idea of intersected identities,

and show how these intersected identities actually shape the ways in which women

experience different kinds of subjugation. Feminists locate the origin of male dominance

in patriarchal cultures within the social, economic, and political spheres of society, and

4 are interested in the ideological processes that legitimate and perpetuate female subordination. As a result, it seems that the term ‘feminist’ implies a specific politicized

understanding of “woman,” namely as members of a subjugated social group.

Feminist social theorists question the gendered hierarchy of cultures that privilege

males, as this endeavor applied questions the social theory cannon’s universal voice as

representing masculine biases. In section two entitled “It was not Lucifer Achieved:

Zimbardo, Women, and Abu Ghraib,” I argue that one way American society has been

“gendered” is through the study of men in social experiments to the exclusion of women

in these situations. Using gender as a tool for analysis, it is possible to provide a richer

understanding of social and cultural situations.

For example, there have been many attempts to make sense of the now infamous

photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. There are several approaches that can

be used to understand these situations of abuse. Phillip Zimbardo argues that the

narratives from which to understand the abuse at Abu Ghraib can be found through an

analysis of group conformity, and in terms of his 1971 Stanford County Prison Study.

Still a further understanding of this abuse can be found in Stanley Milgram’s study

regarding obedience to an authority figure.

At first sight, it seems that experiments such as Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s can

explain the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and to some extent they do provide an interpretation.

However, these experiments do not fully account for the anomic absence of authority and

the lacking of Riesman’s “moral compass” that was non-existent at Abu Ghraib as shown

by the numerous testimonies at the courts-martial of both England and Harman regarding

the lack of leadership with regards to detainee treatment, and the lack of responsibility of

5 those higher-up with regards to the abuse itself. These issues need to be addressed in order to fully account for the chaos of Abu Ghraib.

Additionally, I argue that abuse took place because of the gendered masculine and heterosexist nature of the American military, and highlight the fact that unlike the events at Abu Ghraib, the above studies by Zimbardo and Milgram included only white males.

Furthermore, in The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo (2007) fails to mention the existence of female prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He writes with reference to “good boys” gone bad at

Abu Ghraib as an extension of his famous experiment—but does not write about the female soldiers, prisoners, officers, girlfriends, and other female roles. No account of any situation that excludes 50% of the human race can be considered a full explanation, and instead is an exclusively male-centered analysis. An account of female soldiers, prisoners, officers, lawyers, commanders, girlfriends, and other female roles needs to be considered for a full explanation. The section shows that by using a gender-sensitive analysis, which accounts for both gender and sexuality, one can come to a thicker understanding of the infamous events of this now iconic occurrence. I provide a critique of Zimbardo’s mock-prison study using the realities of Abu Ghraib, and I “fill in” the women’s perspective on Abu Ghraib as a counter to Zimbardo’s exclusively male- centered analyses, from the Stanford Prison Experiment to Abu Ghraib. Thus, I argue that Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study neither fully elucidates nor makes significant sense of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, which was a real place with actual abuse that involved males and females as well as gender and power permutations.

Consider how gender is socially constructed with regards to power, where masculinity is equated with heterosexuality, and value is given to this association. In this

6 way, the connections between sex, gender, and sexuality function as a culturally practiced ideology. One of the characterizations of the American military that I continually refer

back to is that it has been socially constructed as masculinist and heterosexist. The “code

of cultural masculinity,” where both masculinity and heterosexuality function together as

the power symbolic of the military, was evidenced in many ways at the Stanford Prison

and also at Abu Ghraib prison. At Abu Ghraib and during the Stanford experiment, both

situations evidenced homosexual torture techniques to exploit culturally constructed

attitudes about masculinity and fears of homosexuality. Zimbardo’s paradigm for

analysis does not show the importance of sex, gender, and sexuality as themselves torture

techniques, which were used against both Iraqi detainees and Zimbardo’s American

prisoners.

Both situations, Abu Ghraib and Zimbardo’s Study, evidenced similar sexualized

and homoerotic torture techniques—a mock (homosexual) wedding at Stanford, and

forced masturbation and naked pyramids at Abu Ghraib. For example, masculinity was

taken away through the characterization of prisoners as women, through the use of raw

sex, by putting female panties on male prisoner’s heads as humiliation, stacking naked

bodies, forced masturbation and fellatio, and male prisoners’ naked bodies in pyramids.

The American military’s heterosexism and masculinist power symbolic can be seen in

given testimony at the England and Harman courts-martial through the characterization

of soldiers who did not participate in the abuse, where homoeroticism was used as torture

device (sodomy, simulated fellatio, etc.). These examples of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison

show that the mostly male soldiers at Abu Ghraib were reified and heralded when they

acted in typically masculine ways with regard to abuse, while the confessions of

7 weakness made by other soldiers served as an embarrassment to the US Army and its image of the macho-instrumental soldier, and contrary to the masculinist and heterosexist ideal of the military itself.

Consequently, what is missing in Zimbardo’s paradigm for explaining the abuse at Abu Ghraib is an analysis of the connections with regard to power or maleness, masculinity, and heterosexuality. Through an analysis of the connections between sex, gender and sexuality with regard to power, and an analysis of the gendered masculine and heterosexist nature of American culture and military, additional narratives about prisoner abuse are formed. Because the above are not considered by Zimbardo’s paradigm, I argue that Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study does neither fully elucidate nor make significance sense of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

Gender categories also provide descriptions of gender characteristics, where both masculine and feminine symbolic narratives and “codes” have been culturally employed to describe social phenomena. For example, in patriarchal societies some narratives describe gender in terms of binaries, associating masculinity with all that is essential, rational, reasonable, strong, orderly, and logical. Conversely, femininity is associated with emotionality, chaos, weakness, inconsistency, inessentiality, and irrationality.

Given these descriptions of gender characterizations, it is possible to understand how power has been historically exerted to control women’s bodies in areas such as marriage, sexuality, and in legislation over abortion. However, masculine power and control over the body can also affect sexed male bodies, where feminization serves to humiliate and mock cultural constructions of masculinity itself. In this way, masculinist power is used to torture both the body and mind.

8

In section three entitled “Gender, Power and the ‘Rationalization’ of Rationality:

Uses of the Masculine and Feminine Symbolic Narratives,” rationality and chaos as descriptors are analyzed and probed via a gendered lens to demonstrate that both have become collective symbols that works to obscure and repress the cultural and emotional harms of inadequacy, shame, reprisal and barbarism that Abu Ghraib reflects back to the world's collective consiousnesses. In this vein, the section demonstrates that rationality and chaos have becomes narratives and means to repress additional gendered explanations of what occurred in Saddam Hussein's former torture chambers—now owned and operated by the American military. By demonstrating the rationality associated with modernity and its link to masculine and patriarchal systems, the section uses a gender analysis to demonstrate the rational and logically constructed symbols of both “rationality” and “chaos” that most now use to garner a non-understanding of Abu

Ghraib's horrors.

I provide a discussion of the chaos associated with Abu Ghraib prison and how this chaos does not fit into modernist narratives of rationality and order, where I equate order and rationality with the masculine symbolic code. In this way, I describe the illusory order and actual chaos at Abu Ghraib as gendered. Nonetheless, both the rhetoric of order and chaos obscures an additional explanation for the abuses, namely the masculinist and barbaric environment that was indicative of pejorative conditions and was responsible for the maltreatment of detainees.

I provide an analysis of the built and created environment at Abu Ghraib and describe characterizations of Abu Ghraib that came out in testimony at the courts-martial.

9

I also provide some testimony about the conditions of Abu Ghraib to evidence the lack of

“masculine” order, control and rationality associated with the prison itself.

Additionally, I discuss Foucault’s narrative of modernist power structures, and

here I am especially interested in how power was used to punish both the body and soul

at Abu Ghraib. Foucault's identification of the body as the principal target of power has

been used by feminists to analyze contemporary forms of social control over women's

bodies and minds. This becomes an important discussion of power coupled with gender

in that women’s bodies and souls (both American and Iraqi) were punished at Abu

Ghraib—Iraqi women and children were held as bargaining chips at Abu Ghraib, dogs

were used to intimidate Iraqi prisoners, and panties were put on male prisoner’s heads

thereby “feminizing” them.

I also discuss how Foucault’s identification of the body as the principal target of

power actually provides a kind of social control over the prisoners’ bodies and souls/minds at Abu Ghraib, and especially given the gendered and associated sexualized nature of this torture, and the associated violation of Iraqi cultural constructions of masculinity. Some examples of gender manipulation associated with torture of the body are the following: the use of women’s panties on male Iraqi prisoners’ heads, nakedness in front of women as a means for control, a female’s marking of rapist on the male body, male prisoners “friendships” with female guards, male prisoners being treated as

“females,” female guards being forced into photographs of abuse, and the torture of Iraqi males in front of American female guards. I argue that the dehumanization and abuse of prisoners has set the stage for the physical and sexual abuse that followed, where the punishment of the soul occurred in the form of gender manipulation and humiliation.

10

Feminist social theory is also aimed at the analysis of the subordination and marginalization of women from social and cultural arenas, and is focused on understanding the fundamental inequalities between the sexes, specifically with the analysis of male power as dominant over women.1 However, an analysis of power

associated with gender shows how our society and culture is effectively organized in

terms of attitudes and beliefs concerning gender categories.

Again, one aspect of society that that is frequently analyzed using gender is the

division of social power between men and women. These realized power differentials

manifest themselves in the ways that society is organized, as they directly inform a schema of social order and value. In patriarchal societies, what I call gender ideology, or the set of cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes that favor the interests of the powerful masculine gender, come to function as dogma in that they foundationally constitute,

justify, and legitimate positions of power. Additionally, in patriarchal societies, males

are given social power, opportunities, value, and rewards unequal to women, where women receive less of these benefits given their subordinate statuses.

Power coupled with gender informs the organization of society and thus are

evidence of the effects of applied and specific gender constructions within society.

Since it is the case that society is stratified in terms of power arrangements, an analysis of

gender constructions shows how gender roles have been conceived of as a means for

establishing and sustaining social control. From these understandings of power coupled

with gender, social roles emerge and social theorists have come up with many different

ways to discuss these gendered roles. In section four “Abu Ghraib, Parsonian Gender

1 It is important to note that gender experiences differ between individuals, even of the same gender, and I argue that gender categories are stratified with regards to race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and cultural value, among many other hierarchical ways.

11

Roles, and Courts-Martial Experiences,” I analyze the courts-martial of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman and show that the Parsonian distinction between instrumental

(masculine) and expressive (feminine) roles served a multitude of functions simultaneously and especially given the masculinist code of the military. I analyze sworn statements and testimony, and I apply Parsons’ notion of gender roles to an analysis of responsibility for some of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, to an analysis of my experiences in defense council meetings and in the courtroom, to the treatment of prisoners at Abu

Ghraib prison, to an analysis of Sabrina Harman as a “maternal caregiver,” and an analysis of Instrumental and Expressive torture. However, I move beyond Parsons, and argue that given the complex social situations at Abu Ghraib, Parsons’ notions of

“instrumental” and “expressive” are limited with regard to their explanatory power.

For Parsons, the feminine role was the “expressive” role associated with the mothering duties of taking care of children and providing emotional support, which was functional in nature for both the family and for social solidarity. The feminine role was

expressive action oriented towards internal integration, or the amalgamation of the group,

as well as assimilation and incorporation. The masculine role was, according to Parsons,

the “instrumental” role, or those tasks associated with being a wage earner or other goal-

oriented and presumably “rational” tasks. Additionally, Parsons characterized the masculine role as oriented towards instrumental action, aimed at the external environment such as the work place or public and political sphere of society. The masculine role identifies the male as an agent who thinks in terms of rationally-linked goals and means, and whose behavior is esteemed in terms of competence and independence.

12

Nonetheless, I expand Parsons’ theorizing, and argue that given the complex social situations at Abu Ghraib, Parsons’ notions of “instrumental” and “expressive” are limited with regard to their explanatory power in the following situations: when expressive means were linked to instrumental ends; expressiveness towards superiors as a means to an ends; and expressive fear in male soldiers. In general, Parsons accounts for the rigid stereotypes of the military with regard to male and female roles. But Parsons does not account for the fact that males can be expressive, females can be instrumental, and above all, that expressive functions can themselves be “instrumental” in terms of power relationships. Moreover, the “instrumental” goals-means relationships established at Abu Ghraib was non-functional, and ironically, resulted in chaos, not the desired, instrumental goals. A complex and sophisticated application of Parsons’s initial typology leads to new concepts such as expressive torture, expressive power, instrumental torture, and instrumental chaos.

Social conceptual schemes are formed with regard to gender, where power is associated with masculinity, which serves as the standard or benchmark for understanding and interpreting society. Accordingly, the social construction of gender can be understood as a conceptual tool that shapes social realities in that it acts as a comprehensive set of ideas that explain and prescribe social, political, and economic conditions in terms of specific power differentials as within specific contexts. These conceptual schemes are blueprints from which it is argued that social power should be allocated. In this way, gender constructions inform social distributions of power, which are thus products of certain gender ideologies.

13

As stated, recent understandings of gender in sociology describe gender as

something that is socially constructed, meaning that gender performances are “real” in

terms of some “code” of social reality, and as well in their consequence. In this way,

socially constructed gender conceptualizations function as a theoretical “reality” with

applied outcomes for identity and value. Using postmodern theory as a perspective for

understanding “realness,” both gender identity and identity in general, can be understood

as something that is produced in relation to a socially constructed normative category of

“realness.”

In section five “The Significance of Identity Simulacra and Gender Hyperreality:

American Military and The Case of Abu Ghraib,” I am interested in analyzing what was

“real” and what was “simulacra” about gender at Abu Ghraib prison and at the subsequent trials. I provide a discussion of how what is considered theoretically "real" instructs the formation of conceptual and organizational paradigms, and especially categories for thinking about sex and gender.

Both Jean Baudrillard and Judith Butler have theories of gender “realness,” and I consider both theories when describing the categories of gender as simulacrum in their construction, but real in their consequences. For Baudrillard, these gender categories are simulacra in that they do not refer to any reality outside of their conception. However, for Judith Butler, there is a legitimating system based on power that served to render gender performances as valuable. This means that, for Butler, “realness” regarding gender identity is something that we conform to with regards to cultural norms of identity realness. Nonetheless, and although Baudrillard does not posit any kind of power doctrine of gender, both Butler and Baudrillard see gender as ultimately a social

14 construction. Because of their social construction, gender categories themselves can be thusly understood as simulations and simulacra, which are located in Baudrillard’s world of hyperreality, as the reality of the “self” has been replaced by simulacra, or the representations of things (the self in this case) that come to replace the thing being represented.

I analyze notions of gender “realness” and postmodern identity with an analysis of the “metrosexual soldier.” Also, I examine the notion of drag and Baudrillard’s seduction, and show that Sabrina Harman actually “seduces” the masculinist and heterosexist military’s “code” because she is simultaneously a female, a lesbian, and also a member of the masculinist military. This means that Harman evidenced signs of masculinity, heterosexuality, and homosexuality in her identity performance, thereby displaying more signs than reality.

Moreover, I show that roles within the military have been gendered in their constructions in terms of the code of normative gender realness, and show how individuals and actions both reify and subvert these gendered constructions, thereby questioning the “realness” of these constructions. I analyze the gendered construction of the military as a simulacra of masculinity, how military uniforms give bodies legitimate expression while also policing gender according to the code of gender enforced, evidences of “femininity” within the masculinist military through the ritualized style of the body in terms of military gender politics, the association of the doctrine of separate spheres within the military itself vis-à-vis gender roles and gender expressions, performances of gender in the courtroom, the idea of “drag” as applying to military

15 uniforms, and the perceived consequences of offending the masculinist and heterosexist symbolic military code.

One way that gender has been constructed within the U.S. military is through the masculinist system of the military itself, where masculinity functions as the dominant power-simulacra with regards to gender hierarchy. The masculinist economy of the military is one normalizing structure that constructs and reifies notions of gender within the military itself in terms of value. In this way, the masculinist economy functions as the “real” with regards to judging and policing gender expressions, as this “realness” allows for understandings of gender within the military context.

Lastly in this section, I analyze non-normative gender practices that call into question the validity of this entire system of gender and show its “real” nature to be

simulacra, or a “code” based on the “rule by simulacra of reality.” In this analysis I

consider defense attorney Captain Takemaura. It was a telling site that the only female

attorney in the Harman trial was the one who elicited confessions of being afraid out of

the male soldiers. In this way, Takemura wore the persona of the motherly caregiver who

could empathize with fear, and who could make it a safe place to address this fear, even

in the courtroom which was representative of the military’s symbolic code of

masculinity. I argue that she could elicit these confessions because she understood the

military code, and inserted herself as a role acceptable with regards to this power

symbolic. Takemura elicited these confessions while wearing the masculine uniform of

the military, and thus through the use of “drag.”

Dominant gender ideologies become social organizing tools in that the power associated with these ideologies act upon society in such a way that it effects, and to a

16 greater extent instructs, social stratification. Hence, gender ideologies perform the function of “conceptual lens” through which social power, and specifically social stratification, is understood. Furthermore, it is in terms of gender ideologies that society

constructs itself in an attempt to mirror established power differentials, thereby reifying

the dominant ideology.

One way that gender ideologies manifest themselves is in terms of cultural

representations. Within these representations, gender messages can be interpreted as

showing the subjugation of women in larger societies, thereby furthering messages of

inequality and gender hierarchy. Sometimes these messages are interpreted in terms of

what they leave out. In section six “Representations of Abu Ghraib and Images of Power in Relation to Gender,” I analyze different representations of Abu Ghraib and discuss images of gender as power. These representations range from leaked photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib, to Botero’s art, to images used by the advertising industry to promote a sort of Abu Ghraib, sado-masochistic fashion.

I discuss Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s recent exhibition entitled “Abu

Ghraib,” and show the gendered representations that Botero provides of prisoners.

Within this analysis, I discuss the importance of these images with regard to constructions of Iraqi cultural masculinity and the associated gendered humiliation and

“homoerotic” abuse. I critique his representations of abuse at Abu Ghraib because they

leave out a “testimony” of two specific kinds of suffering associated with the atrocities at

Abu Ghraib prison. First, Botero does not fully address the suffering of the women and

children who were detained at Abu Ghraib, and specifically the women who were raped at the prison. Second, Botero’s work does not depict the women charged and found

17 guilty of detainee abuse, namely Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman, two of the

“rotten apples.” To not make these women central to his work seems to violate his stated aims of remembering what happened at Abu Ghraib. Additionally, I analyze the

representations of Botero’s Abu Ghraib versus the actual images of abuse at Abu Ghraib

in terms of the poses of prisoners as martyrs, and especially since Botero’s “martyr” pose

is gendered in that the male prisoner is wearing a red female undergarments.

Aditionally, I analyze images taken by photographer Antonin Kratochvil, a Czech

refugee who fled to the United States and whose father was tortured and humiliated in a

Stalinist labor camp. Following in the footsteps of Botero, Kratochvil has recreated the

humiliation suffered by naked, bound and hooded Iraqis in his project called “Homage to

Abu Ghraib.” Like Botero, Kratochvil says his intent is to emblazon the images upon the

consciousness of the world. Kratochvil’s images are blurry, and I argue that a possible

explanation for the blurry images is that prisoners are not identified by name or face at

Abu Ghraib, and exist only in terms of the gendered and homoerotic abuse they

experiences as objects, among other conjectures.

Additionally, I analyze current images of Abu Ghraib that have been morphed and

used as a means to sell consumer products, and argue that these images have a gendered

message with regards to women’s secondary status to men within a patriarchal culture.

Within this discussion, I show that the advertising media exploits the sadomasochism of

the sexual and homoerotic abuse at Abu Ghraib to sell products. In this case, women’s

use-value as objects to be tortured, objects for torture, and as witnesses to torture. This

discussion of the value of women becomes additionally important when considering the

18

“use-value” of woman as functioning as objects for torture, or as actual “interrogation techniques” at Abu Ghraib, in both thing and strategy.

Finally, I analyze the actual images of women depicted in the leaked photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib and argue that these photographs show England and Harman as out of context, in that they were not actually torturing (this came out in the trials), but

were following commands to smile in pictures.

The significance of this research for sociology is that there has not been extensive

analysis of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the surrounding courts-martial in terms of

sociological theory (postmodern, modern, and cultural), gender, or sexuality, so this

would add to the current and growing analysis of these events. Additionally, a discussion

of the visual interpretations of the abuses at Abu Ghraib has not been connected to social

theory in general, including recent expressions of this abuse. This project can thus fill a

missing gap in the discussion. Additionally, because of the nature of my involvement in

the trials of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman, I have an insider perspective that only

few others have, including researching for the defense, and being a part of private

meetings and strategy sessions. I think it is important to initiate the discussion of gender

and women’s roles in the military today—as soldiers, officers, commanders, lawyers, and

other roles—in addition to an analysis of current issues for policy making, and

specifically with regard to the use of torture.

19

2. IT WAS NOT LUCIFER ACHIEVED: ZIMBARDO, WOMEN,

AND ABU GHRAIB

There have been many attempts to make sense of the now infamous photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. Academics, lawyers, and journalists alike have provided varied interpretations of how the situation could have taken place at the hands of American military soldiers, if the environment itself could have produced the malicious behavior, who was to blame for the abuses of prisoners, among many other conjectures. There are several approaches that can be used to understand these situations

of abuse. Some make sense of the abuse at Abu Ghraib through interpretations of the

leaked photographs only, and without consideration of the context within which these

photos were taken, while others provide an account of the ill treatment in terms of

interviews with former detainees at Abu Ghraib prison itself. In other sections, I have

provided a postmodern text for understanding the events at Abu Ghraib. However,

Phillip Zimbardo argues that the narratives from which to understand the abuse at Abu

Ghraib can be found through an analysis of group conformity, and in terms of his 1971

Stanford County Prison Study (Zimbardo 2007a, Zimbardo 2007b). Still a further

understanding of this abuse can be found in Stanley Milgram’s study regarding obedience

to an authority figure (Milgram 1963).

At first sight, it seems that experiments such as Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s can

explain the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and to some extent they do provide an interpretation.

However, these experiments do not fully account for the anomic absence of authority and

the lacking of Riesman’s “moral compass” that was non-existent at Abu Ghraib as shown

by the numerous testimonies at the courts-martial of both England and Harman regarding

20 the lack of leadership with regards to detainee treatment, and the lack of responsibility of those higher-up with regards to the abuse itself. These issues need to be addressed in order to fully account for the chaos of Abu Ghraib. Hence, I argue that because of testimony supplied at the England and Harman courts-martial, analysis of the government’s reports, as well as other evidence, that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was not simply the result of a few “rotten apples” in a volatile environment conducive to group- influenced behavior defined as torture.

Still another narrative is that abuse took place because of the gendered masculine and heterosexist nature of the American military. Zimbardo takes none of these alternate explanations into account. Furthermore, in The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo (2007) fails to mention the existence of female prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He writes with reference to

“good boys” gone bad at Abu Ghraib as an extension of his famous experiment—but does not write about the female soldiers, prisoners, officers, lawyers, commanders, girlfriends, and other female roles. No account of any situation that excludes 50% of the human race can be considered a full explanation. Much like Carol Gilligan had to “fill in” the “other voice,” namely women’s points of view, in relation to the exclusively male-oriented work of Lawrence Kohlberg, I intend to “fill in” the women’s perspective on Abu Ghraib as a counter to Zimbardo’s exclusively male-centered analyses, from the

Stanford Prison Experiment to Abu Ghraib. The section shows that by using a gender- sensitive analysis, which accounts for both gender and sexuality, one can come to a thicker understanding of the infamous events of this now iconic occurrence. Thus, I argue that Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study neither fully elucidates nor makes

21 significant sense of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, which was a real place with actual abuse that involved males and females as well as gender and power permutations.

2.1 Zimbardo’s Prison Study

Consider Zimbardo’s experiment aimed at providing an explanation of group conformity to roles (Zimbardo 1971; Zimbardo 1972; Zimbardo 2007a, Zimbardo 2007b;

Musen and Zimbardo 1991). Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford County Prison Study simulated a mock jail situation where exclusively male students were randomly assigned the role of guard and prisoner. This experiment was aimed at understanding the behavior and psychological consequences of becoming a prison guard or prisoner. A realistic looking prison block was constructed in the basement of California’s Stanford University, and seventy young men were screened physically and psychologically for the experiment.

The healthiest 24 men—or as Zimbardo calls them, “boys”—were selected to participate in the study, and they were given their roles as either guard or prisoner. The Palo Alto city police actually participated in the experiment and arrested publicly those previously designated to be prisoners in the study. These prisoners were taken to the police station, fingerprinted, and then transported to the Stanford University basement’s mock jail.

The guards and prisoners were to spend the next two weeks in the prison with

each other. Zimbardo, the superintendent of the prison, had instructed the guards not to

physically harm the prisoners, but to create situations of boredom, frustration, fear, and

arbitrariness so that the prisoners understood that the guards now controlled their life.

Basically, Zimbardo ordered that the guards should show the prisoners that they had total arbitrary control of them as prisoners. It was the guards’ responsibility to maintain constant surveillance of the prisoners, who in turn had no degree of privacy whatsoever.

22

Additionally, the guards were instructed to create an atmosphere of powerlessness for the

prisoners, where their identities were stripped from them in exchange for a faceless

identification through numbers. Once the prisoners arrived at the mock jail, they were

stripped naked, given rubber shower shoes, and chained around one leg as a constant reminder of their role status. Symbols were used at the prison to show status, with the guards receiving a whistle, billy club, uniform, and mirror sunglasses (to allow the guards to mask their “own” identity for that of “guard”)—all symbolic of their powerful role over the prisoners. The prisoners received identical plain potato-sack outfits with armholes, which were actually women’s plain dresses, prisoner identification numbers,

and headscarves—all symbolic of their subordinate status to the guards. In this way, the

mask of the mirror sunglasses and the numbers used for detainee identification provided

alternate identities for both prisoners and guards.

However, soon after arriving at the “Stanford Prison,” both guards and prisoners

became resentful and hostile towards one another. When tactics of force were shown not

to work effectively, as sometimes prisoners laughed at guards’ commands, thereby not

taking the situation seriously, the guards began to additionally use psychological tactics

to control the prisoners. Guards humiliated the prisoners sadistically by assigning them

duties such as cleaning out toilets with their bare hands, forcing them to do pushups and

repeat commands, sing songs that ultimately led to the guards’ power position over the

prisoners (such as repeating “prisoner 819 did a bad thing” so as to redirect prisoner

hostility away from the guards). Additionally, guards interrupted sleep to do role calls

(argued to provide regular interaction with prisoners as a means to show control), called

the prisoners names thereby making them feel ridiculous, took away their blankets,

23 clothing (nakedness), and beds, used sexual humiliation, and forced them at night to urinate and defecate in buckets in their cells. In some cases, the guards attempted to give some prisoners privileges such as beds, clothing, and better meals as a means to gain prisoner compliance through reward. Additionally, the guards used a storage closet as a

place to put prisoners in solitary confinement for punishment. These were all actions

aimed at outlining and maintaining the guard’s control. As a means for preserving the

environment of the prison, compliance of prisoners, and the authority of the guards,

Zimbardo instructed guards to put paper bags over the prisoner’s heads when they went

to the restrooms or when they went to the counseling office, which was not uncommon

(Gibney 2006). Not surprisingly, the prisoners resisted and insulted the guards in return.

Within a day there were signs of stress and anxiety, as prisoners were beginning

to feel panic and extreme control. On the second day, prisoner 8612 started to complain

of stomach pains and headaches, and when he went to meet with Zimbardo (as a prisoner,

and not a student), Zimbardo (in the prison supervisor role) told him that he could not

leave the experiment and instead offered prisoner 8612 a deal for easy treatment if he

would become a “snitch” (Musen and Zimbardo 1991). Prisoner 8612 returned to the

population and told everyone that he had met with Zimbardo and that there was no way

that anybody could get out of the experiment (Musen and Zimbardo 1991). Because of

the reported outcome of this meeting with Zimbardo, the prison superintendent, the

prisoners really began to feel like prisoners. Additionally, the guards began to think of

the prisoners as themselves dangerous. There were minimal signs of physical rebellion

in the mock jail, and instead there were evidences of psychological stress. After only

four days, Zimbardo had removed five of the male student-prisoners who displayed

24

“extreme emotional depression, crying, rage, and acute anxiety” (Zimbardo 1972). For example, prisoner 8612 began to show signs of confusion and helplessness, and began to exhibit signs of a “crazy person,” which turned into uncontrollable rage (Musen and

Zimbardo 1991). Before the first week ended, the situation of abuse had become so bad that Zimbardo cancelled the experiment totally. Zimbardo (1972) says that guards began

to treat prisoners as “despicable animals” and that they were taking pleasure in cruelty.

Zimbardo also characterized some of the prisoners as becoming so servile, yielding, and

submissive that they were said to have only been concerned with their escape, their own

individual survival, and their escalating hatred of the guards (Zimbardo 1972).

It is important to note that Zimbardo “decided” to end the experiment as the result

of his girlfriend, and wife-to-be, Christina Maslach’s strong protestations. Zimbardo has

acknowledged her whistle blowing role throughout his writings, and in fact, he dedicates

his most recent book, The Lucifer Effect, to her with the words: “Dedicated to the Serene

Heroine of My Life: Christina Maslach Zimbardo.” The significance of this fact for the

present analysis is that Maslach was the only female voice, the only “different voice,” in

the more than 30-year-old patriarchal and exclusively male-centered narrative of the

Stanford Prison Experiment and its significance.

The abuse that flowed from the experiment was explained by Zimbardo as

resulting from the situation and environment that the students were put into, coupled with

their role identification of either guard or prisoner. In this way, behavior was explained in terms of situational forces and adherence to roles within these situations. Zimbardo thus concluded that prison violence is a behavior that is rooted in the social character of jails and prisons themselves, and not in the personalities of those either working or kept

25 there (guards or prisoners). Zimbardo is not always consistent on this point, admitting in The Lucifer Effect that he was the superintendent at the mock prison, and thereby may have influenced the results.

Zimbardo applied this narrative to the abuse at Abu Ghraib as a way of understanding the events. However, Zimbardo’s account leaves out some important factors that are imperative to consider when providing a narrative for the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. Specifically, Zimbardo does not account for the following: how significant authority figures can have some impact on behavior; that American troops were located in a war zone and faced daily catastrophes of war; that cultural differences were exploited and used against prisoners at Abu Ghraib as torture techniques; the anomic absence of authority at Abu Ghraib; and the lack of any moral guidelines for action; and above all, how men and women coped and acted differently at Abu Ghraib vis-à-vis the abuse and reactions to it .

2.2 Milgram and the Absence of Authority Figures

Another approach for understanding the abuse at Abu Ghraib is in terms of

Stanley Milgram’s 1962 social psychology experiments at Yale University, where

Milgram aimed to understand the effects of group behavior and blind obedience to an authority figure (Milgram 1963). Using this study, it is possible to account for some of the influence that those higher-up in the military had regarding prisoner abuse, which the application of Zimbardo’s experiment failed to account for.

Milgram conducted conformity experiments in a controversial study that was aimed at understanding how inhumane actions can be understood with no concern for consequences, such as with the Nazi’s in WWII. His research question was the

26 following—Under what conditions would a person obey authority when it goes against one’s conscience? (Milgram 1963). In this experiment, Milgram explained to male recruits that they would be taking part in a study of how punishment affects learning.

One by one he assigned them to the role of either ‘teacher” or “learner,” and placed the learner (who was also the accomplice in the study) in a connecting room. Note again that the idea of testing how women would behave under similar research conditions did not seem to occur to Milgram or any of the noted researchers in the obedience to (male) authority paradigm.

The teacher watched the learner sit down in a contraption representing an electric chair, and as the teacher looked on the researcher applied electrode paste to the learner’s wrist, explaining that the paste would prevent blisters and burns. The researcher then

attached an electrode to the learner’s wrist, and fastened a leather strap to prevent

movement when given electrical shock. Although the shocks were to be painful,

Milgram assured the teacher that there would be no permanent damage. The researcher

then led the teacher into an adjoining room and showed him that the electric chair was

hooked up to a generator that gives shocks. However, the “teacher” role did not know

that these would be phony shocks. There was a dial that could be turned to adjust the

intensity of the shocks, and seated in front of the shock generator the teacher is supposed

to read a pair of words aloud and then repeat the first word, waiting for the learner to

repeat the second word. If the learner got it incorrect, he would be shocked, with

increasing intensity. The listener was supposed to moan when “shocked,” and as the

shocks became more intense, the learner was instructed to begin to yell and pound on the

wall. After a certain level, there was silence from the learner after shocks were given.

27

Now, even with this silence, Milgram was trying to research how many teachers would go all of the way to the highest shock level under the command of Milgram, the authority figure in the experiment. When the “teachers” expressed concern and asked Milgram how far on the shock meter they had to go, Milgram would reply “As far as necessary”

(Gibney 2006).

At the urging of Milgram, the “teachers” kept participating with the experiment even though they believed that they were causing harm. The responsibility for this

“harm” was put onto the researcher’s shoulders and Milgram, the authority figure, could be understood as taking the blame for the “teacher’s” actions with his prodding of action.

In this way, responsibility was removed from the “teachers” with regard to the harm they were possibly causing, as Milgram as the authority figure insisted in their compliance of action, thereby forcing responsibility onto Milgram. Almost two thirds of the subjects

(“teachers”) went all of the way to 450 volts, even with all of the negative responses from the learners, and even after their final silence. Milgram thus reached the conclusion that pressures keep us in the roles that we accept and that behavior itself is dominated by social roles we are to play. Milgram’s research into obedience suggests that people are likely to follow directions from legitimate authority figures even when it means inflicting harm on another person.

Applied to Abu Ghraib, Milgram’s study about compliance with authority figures provides an interpretation concerning the influence that those higher-ups in the military had regarding prisoner abuse. For example, there was some confusion about the status of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib—were they prisoners of war or enemy combatants? The

President of the United States was not clear in the characterization of the status of these

28 detainees in Iraq and there was much discussion about their relative standing. This unclear characterization of prisoner status by the Commander in Chief of the United

States, and within the military itself, led to uncertainty with regards to prisoner rights.

Thus, it was not initially clear if the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners at Abu

Ghraib, and hence there was some confusion about proper handling of detainees. This

confusion was specifically a result of the confusion between prisoner rights in

Afghanistan, where the Geneva Conventions did not apply, versus prisoner rights in Iraq,

where they were applicable.

Moreover, the new situation at Abu Ghraib that is different from Milgram’s male-

centered studies is that Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was a female commander of all

the prisons in Abu Ghraib. But as she explains in her book, One Woman’s Army, her

male superiors dealt with this unwelcome fact by simply bypassing her completely when

it came to all decisions regarding Abu Ghraib. As she points out, she was kept “out of

the loop,” and she makes it clear that she believes that this is because she is a woman.

On the other hand, she was the only commander, male or female, who was demoted as

punishment for what occurred at Abu Ghraib. This complex reality of Abu Ghraib in

terms of command structure, obedience to authority, and gender does not flow out of

Milgram’s, Zimbardo’s, or any other work in the obedience to authority paradigm.

Additionally, as was shown in the courts-martial of Lynndie England and Sabrina

Harman, abuse of prisoners was again and again reported to those higher up in the chain

of command. However, initially nothing was done about these reports of abuse, and only after the photographs of the abuse were leaked to the press did this maltreatment become an outright issue. Once abuse was reported and nothing was done about it, logically it

29 follows that those who took the reports of abuse become implicated as “authority figures” acquiescing to torture tactics. Nonetheless, as of this writing, no officers or those higher- ups in the chain of command, including Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defense Secretary

(who the ACLU and Human Rights Watch have filed a lawsuit against for bearing direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. Military custody in Iraq), have been charged with maltreatment of detainees. Rumsfeld has been quoted in the media as stating that he “felt bad about what happened to the detainees [at Abu Ghraib],” but he has personally approved interrogation techniques such as stress positions, nudity, and the use of dogs, which violate long standing military rules (Gibney 2006). In fact, with regards to using questionable tactics for detainee interrogation, Vice President Dick

Cheney was also quoted as saying that it might be time to “take the gloves off and go to the dark side” (Gibney 2006).

Additionally, training in interrogation techniques migrated from Guantanamo

Bay, Afghanistan, and to Iraq, where Major General Geoffrey Miller provided training.

Miller is the officer in charge of interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his instruction in Iraq evidences an authority figure as associated with the questionable treatment of prisoners. Case and point, interrogation tactics were taught to the MI’s in

Iraq by an authority figure, namely Miller.

Moreover, at the England and Harman courts-martial, testimony was provided

regarding orders given to the prison guards at Abu Ghraib specifying tactics for dealing with prisoners, and specifically the breakdown of the roles of MI and MP. The MPs

were told to “soften up” detainees for interrogation, which was outside of the duties of

the MPs, who were to function as guards. As a matter of fact, at the England courts-

30 martial, Specialist Matthew Wisdom stated under testimony that he reported abuse to

Sergeant Jones, and was told to go back to work. Additionally, Sergeant Ken Davis stated at the England courts-martial that he reported this questionable treatment of MPs abusing detainees to his platoon leader, and that he was told that the MIs were in charge and to let them do their job. Said Davis to his platoon leader after seeing naked prisoners handcuffed in sexual positions, “The MI’s are doing weird things with naked

detainees.”

Additionally, in a 2006 Documentary shown on Sundance about Abu Ghraib

(Gibney 2006), Davis describes a conversation that he and Charles Graner had one

evening after Graner’s shift, where Davis asked Graner if he was getting sick since he

was losing his voice. Graner said “no, he wasn’t getting sick,” but explained that MIs were pushing MPs to “soften up” detainees, and that he, as an MP, had been yelling all night. As bombs were going off outside of the prison, MIs were yelling at MPs and telling them that “there goes another American losing their life and unless you help

[soften up detainees] then their blood is on your hands too” (Gibney 2006). MIs were using the psychological tactics of guilt coupled with obligation as a means to get the MPs to “soften up” the prisoners, where the prisoners were now getting the full brunt of the

MP’s force, as they were being emotionally equated with the “terrorists” bombing the prison outside of the walls of Abu Ghraib. What is important to remember here is that most of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were common criminals, if criminal at all, and that these prisoners were suffering violence at the hands of American troops because of the psychological techniques that MI was using on MP. Specifically, MIs were using the psychological technique of making the MPs paranoid and delusional, where events

31 outside of the prison were being equated with regards to responsibility to the detainees inside of the prison. In this way, MI was applying psychological techniques to the MPs as a way of getting them to do specific actions, and thus functioned as a kind of influential superior in that behavior was brought about because of MI urgings. These urgings, coupled with, according to the book The Torture Papers (Danner 2004), the high priority placed on “actionable intelligence” from suspects being interrogated, led to the valuing of intelligence as more important than the lawful respecting of the Geneva

Conventions or the various prohibitions on torture signed onto by congress. Explicitly, in some cases, military personnel were told “do what you have to do to get confessions”

(Gibney 2006). Hence, there is some evidence that authority figures instructed prisoner care, although this is different than exemplified in Milgram’s study in that Abu Ghraib was not a controlled for environment, there was not an authority figure continuously providing the delineations for correct behavior, and this authority figure could not be referenced continuously and over time with regard to responsibility for the actions being urged forward.

Again, missing even in these discussion of the role of MI at Abu Ghraib are the glaring facts that the general in charge of all military intelligence in Iraq was female,

Major General Barbara Fast. Interestingly, the point person for implementing General

Miller’s Guantanamo techniques in both Afghanistan and Iraq was female, Captain

Carolyn Wood. Fast and Wood are, for all practical purposes, invisible in discussions of

this sort. Next to nothing is known about the following: their roles, whether they protested against the techniques, how they got along with their male counter-parts in the

chain of command, and in general—their “voice.”

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Nonetheless, Milgram’s study does apply to the situation between England and

Graner to some extent. One of the expert witnesses for the defense stated under oath that

Graner could have been running a “class on obedience,” where Graner was the scientist authority and England was the individual showing blind obedience to this authority, or

“teacher” using Milgram’s study as a parallel. In Xavier Amador’s and Thomas Denne’s expert opinion at England’s courts-martial, England was compliant to Graner’s wished and orders, and showed loyalty and duty to Graner since they were in a relationship as

lovers at Abu Ghraib prison. Additionally, Amador characterized Graner as acting as

England’s father when describing the level of England’s compliance. For the sake of

completeness, it should be noted that Mestrovic did not agree with the tack taken by the

two expert witnesses in psychology, because, as a sociologist, he said that such an

exclusively psychological explanation unfairly shifted all the blame onto Graner, and not the social climate that transformed Graner’s behavior.

Consider Graner’s testimony about the now infamous picture of England holding a leashed detainee. Graner stated under oath that he pulled the detainee he had nicknamed “Gus” out of the cell through the use of the tether of a rifle sling. Earlier that day, Gus had been violent towards the guards and so Graner thought he was using precautionary measures by not entering the cell and using an extraction technique.

Joyner’s testimony later that day also revealed that Gus was highly disruptive and would fight everyone when he was taken out of his cell, and he said that he remembered Gus specifically and as his personality made a lasting impression on him, as he refused to wear clothing. Graner stated that both England and Ambuhl were present during this extraction in case the prisoner got violent, as cell extractions were repeatedly described in

33 the courts-martial as dangerous situations where you enter the prisoner’s environment, although Graner did not request that either England or Ambuhl wear protective equipment. Graner intended to yank the prisoner out of the cell by his shoulders, but the leash slipped and went around his neck instead. Graner stated that the prisoner then got up on all fours and crawled out of the cell, at which time Graner handed the tether to

England. Graner took three photographs of this detainee with England holding the tether, and stated that England was compliant with all of his orders. Stated Graner

“England trusts me, yes. She did not think I was going to maltreat the detainee.”

Implied in this statement is the idea that England held Graner in high esteem such that his behavior could not be aimed at anything unethical or wrong. Actually, I doubt that

England even questioned these distinctions when it came to her views of Graner, and specifically because of consideration of Xavier Amador’s expert witness analysis of her psychological profile. Additionally, in another infamous photograph of England, where she is smiling and pointing to an Iraqi’s genitals, Graner stated under oath that he had ordered England to get into the photograph. No doubt, England was compliant with this order, again demonstrating the kind of blind faith that she put in Grainer. Applying

Milgram, in this example his notion of obedience to authority figures applies exactly in that England was described again and again through testimony as being compliant towards Graner’s requests.

However, considering the previous examples—the questionable status of the prisoners, the fact that abuse was reported and ignored, and also that tactics for interrogation were trained for, evidence of authority figures as responsible for instructing some of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and as separate from Zimbardo’s claims of

34 environmental conditions as the reason for action—there is indeed another narrative that should be considered as a reason for the abuse itself. Specifically, the Zimbardo paradigm leaves out the role of influential superiors by only focusing on the power of situations and roles, and thus Zimbardo’s account leaves out the power individuals have

to influence these situations. What is also interesting is that in his own study, the

Stanford Prison Study, Zimbardo himself acts as the primary “authority figure” in the

experiment, as he both controlled the experiment and was also an active participant in the

experiment as prison supervisor. Again, not only did Zimbardo serve as the social

scientist and creator of this experiment, he was also a participant in this experiment with

his role of prison supervisor.

Nonetheless, I do not argue that in these examples that total responsibility can be

passed off to the authority figure, as was the case with Milgram’s study. At Abu Ghraib,

there was no written or agreed upon method or tactic for detainee care or interrogation

that was consistently taught or put forth as procedure. Instead, prisoner care and

detainee interrogation was described in testimony as “ad hoc” in nature. Jones even

stated in his testimony that Graner, who was described by Jones as having a “strong

personality,” had a following of sorts, where it gave Jones the “impression” that Graner controlled and influenced the actions of others with his “ad hoc” approach to detainee

care and handling. Additionally, there was no authority figure urging appropriate and

prescribed action to continue, and there was no controlled for environment such as with

Milgram’s laboratory. Nonetheless, Milgram’s study thus gives some insight into the roles that authority figures played at Abu Ghraib, and where Zimbardo’s experiment does

not. Yet the role of England highlights the fact that gender played a significant role: no

35 male soldier was nearly as submissive to Graner as the female England was. Other male soldiers testified that they were afraid of Graner, even feared that he would shoot and kill

them, but England testified and experts testified about her, that she complied with his

“authority” out of “love.” Moreover, as the defense attorneys tried to argue, she was

involved in this ‘abusive love relationship” because she was stressed, scared, and

disoriented, so that Graner became her “moral compass.” Graner made it very clear in

his testimony that he did not love or even care for England or her baby. A

straightforward application of Milgram and Zimbardo is not complete without taking into

account these aspects of cross-gender relationships in authority and obedience.

The “obedience to authority” paradigm that Zimbardo and Milgram use does not

fully capture the reality of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, which I and Mestrovic (2007) argue

was caused by an anomic absence of authority and the lacking of Riesman’s “moral

compass” (Riesman [1961] 2000) along with several other explanations outlined above.

Did the Geneva Conventions apply? Why were they not posted in the prison on a

consistent basis? Were these enemy combatants or prisoners of war? Throughout the

trials there was testimony regarding the ad-hoc nature of detainee handling and questioning of practices precisely because there was no ready-made guide for this kind of

situation for soldiers to follow. What is more, once training was given to soldiers

regarding detainee treatment, responsibility was denied at even the highest levels, for example as in the Cardona dog-handler case, where Major General Miller was exempted

from testifying even though there was testimony stating that he had indeed trained for,

and thereby approved the use of, these interrogation tactics.

36

Stjepan G. Mestrovic, an expert witness for the defense in sociology and psychology for both the Harman and England courts-martial, stated under oath that there was a normalization of deviance at Abu Ghraib with regard to the social disorganization of the prison. For example, Mestrovic pointed to the uncertainty of authority, the inadequate filling system, the confusion of roles concerning MI and MP, the social chaos, and the unhealthy mystique of the environment itself. He spoke directly of the chaos at

Abu Ghraib as being disoriented and with no validation of right or wrong behavior— meaning that there was no moral compass from which to organize behavior. Mestrovic linked his testimony to the government’s actual reports on Abu Ghraib and stated that the

breaking of norms basically started a slippery slope, leading to more serious abuse.

Mestrovic argued that deviant practices “migrated” into Iraq from Afghanistan and

Guantanamo, and that these deviances morphed into regular-seeming and thus

normalized tactics, making further deviance easier. In this way, Mestrovic argued that

there existed a “cognitive dissonance” regarding the chaos at Abu Ghraib, where the

mind had to join together two seemingly contradictory things and actions—in this

situation, moral versus immoral behavior. In his testimony, Mestrovic also distinguished

sharply between the “passive” abuse committed by England and Harman, who did not hit

anyone and were guilty primarily of posing in photos and taking photos, versus the active

kicking, punching, and physical violence exerted by male soldiers on prisoners.

2.3 Back to Zimbardo and Abu Ghraib

No doubt, there are some similarities of behavior evidenced between Zimbardo’s

study and the events at Abu Ghraib, and I will address these in the following section.

37

However, there were much dissimilarity between Zimbardo’s study and the realities of

Abu Ghraib.

First, Abu Ghraib was located in a war zone where American troops were killed daily, and mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks on the prison itself were made nightly. Additionally, at Abu Ghraib there was a lack of food, water, medical provisions, and even electricity, such that there were sometimes no electricity from the generators, and at night outside lighting from vehicles was used, according to the testimony of the supply officer at Abu Ghraib, Major David DiNenna. Master Sergeant Joyner testified under oath at the England trial that Abu Ghraib prison stunk, was nasty, and was possibly

“the nastiest place on earth.” Both DiNenna and Joyner asked out loud during their testimonies why the U.S. Army picked a prison that was in the middle of an active war zone for handling supposedly high-security threats. Conversely, Zimbardo’s study was located in the basement of Stanford University, and neither the prisoners nor the guards faced the daily atrocities of war that American troops experienced. In this way, although not emotionally safe, the prisoners in Zimbardo’s study were physically safe from bodily harm, had supplies such as food, water, and electricity, had security, and had constant support from both the school and creators of the study. Additionally, Zimbardo’s participants were released upon showing signs of emotional distress, while at Abu Ghraib emotional distress and chaos was evidenced in many ways as a normal part of life.

Additionally, American soldiers were not given any way out of the chaos of Abu Ghraib as this was not a study with a set duration. Under oath and in his testimony, Graner called the prison “bizarro-world” in an attempt to characterize the chaotic environment at

38

Abu Ghraib, where screaming from prisoners in painful stress positions was common, he claimed, at Tier 1-A.

Another reason that I argue that Zimbardo’s experiment is different from the events at Abu Ghraib is that cultural differences did not exist in Zimbardo’s experiment.

Unlike at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were Iraqi, and where interrogation techniques were used that exploited Iraqi cultural fears, such as the use of dogs. In Zimbardo’s

study, all of the participants were American males who were students at Stanford. This

means that at Stanford, there was not the ability for guards to use different cultural values

as a means and method of torture, as all of the Stanford participants basically had similar

cultural experiences. At Abu Ghraib, however, dogs were used as a means to intimidate

and humiliate Iraqi prisoners.

I argue that another dissimilarity between Zimbardo’s Prison Study and the events

at Abu Ghraib is that women were present at Abu Ghraib, and only men participated in

Zimbardo’s study. This is foundationally important when analyzing misogyny and

sexism at Abu Ghraib. In the courts-martial of England and Harman, it came out in

testimony that women and children were kept at Abu Ghraib. Through interviews with

soldiers who were witnesses at the trial, I learned that the women and children were

“swept up” along with the men in disorganized arrest sweeps, and in some cases were

kept as “hostages” to make the men talk during interrogations. What is of great interest is

that the U.S. Government conceded in open trial that it kept women and children at Abu

Ghraib, without charging them with any crime, but never stated the reason for their

detention. (The government reports also fail to investigate the reasons for detaining

women and children.) If the “backstage” reason stated by the soldiers is that, indeed, the

39 women and children were held as hostages, then it seems that the U.S. Army engaged in a practice it condemns in its enemies, namely hostage-taking. But the soldiers stated

they were not asked the reasons for this curious fact while they were testifying on the

stand, and thus one of the hidden realities of Abu Ghraib was exposed.

2.4 Cultural Code of Masculinity

Once more, there are indeed some similarities evidenced between Zimbardo’s

study and the events at Abu Ghraib. For example, both situations evidenced emblematic

use of symbols for power such as uniforms, naked prisoners, and billy clubs. Similarly,

both Zimbardo’s prison and Abu Ghraib show similar behavior in prisoner care with the

use of stress positions/situations where prisoners were hooded and chained/zip-tied,

stripped naked, and the frequent restraint of bodies in an attempt to display power.

Additionally, looking at abuse in Zimbardo’s study and also at Abu Ghraib, the nature of

abuse at both locations turned sexual. Both situations evidenced similar sexualized and

homoerotic torture techniques—a mock (homosexual) wedding at Stanford, and forced

masturbation and naked pyramids at Abu Ghraib. I argue that this can be understood in

terms of the connections between sex and gender, power, and sexuality, and that what is

missing in Zimbardo’s account of the abuse during his prison study, and his application

of his study to Abu Ghraib, is this specific kind of analysis.

Consider how gender is socially constructed with regards to power, where

masculinity is equated with heterosexuality, and value is given to this association. In

this way, the connections between sex, gender, and sexuality function as a culturally

practiced ideology. One of the characterizations of the American military that I

continually refer back to is that it has been socially constructed as a masculinist and

40 heterosexist environment. This means that value is given to the characterization of things that are masculine, where maleness and masculinity are equated and rewarded commensurately. Consider the advertisements for the Marine Corps, where what is needed are a “Few Good Men,” or the Army’s advertisement where what is sought is “An

Army of One’s Own,” and always a male soldier’s face is shown on the television.

Additionally, consider some of the evidence that I found in the city of Ft. Hood, Texas, where representations of these culturally constructed masculinist attitudes could be found.

Consider some of the images I found painted on the wall of the YMCA in old downtown Ft. Hood, Texas. The images of this collection can be found below, and equate soldiers with being male, with fighting in wars, with defense, freedom, and most of all with masculinity. None of the soldiers pictures are women, and only children are shown in image where the male soldier is seemingly saying “goodbye” to his children and is going to serve somewhere away from home. The mother is not even valued enough to be pictured in this case. As an addition, I did not encounter any images or representations of women in the military, or advertisements seeking military employment for women during both of my extended stays in Ft. Hood, Texas.

Figure 1, YMCA (wall), Ft. Hood, TX (Caldwell, 2005).

Figure 2, YMCA (window), Ft. Hood, TX (Caldwell, 2005).

These images testify to the masculinist nature of the environment in this military town, and with the larger cultural value that is placed on masculinity within the military itself. 42

Additionally, I argue that heterosexuality is the organizing sexuality in the

American military, where gays and lesbians are not legally allowed to “openly,” and thus with open knowledge of their gayness, serve their country. These characterizations of the military, that of masculinity and heterosexuality, culminates in what I term a “code of cultural masculinity,” where what it means to be male and masculine is understood as heterosexual in nature.

American cultural values underwrite this fear of homosexuality, where homosexual men have frequently been targeted with violence in American culture and have thus faced massive amounts of discrimination physically and legally. New legislation forbids the use of sexual orientation as a means for violence or the threat of violence with hate-crime legislation, where hate crimes are punished more severely than exactly similar crimes that are not driven by stated discriminatory practices. I argue that homoerotic torture can be described in kind as a hate-crime of sorts, and one that is specifically engaging of our stereotypical cultural connections between maleness, masculinity, and straightness. I argue that these qualities have historically been powerful perspectives in American society, and thus function as an organizing principle of our heterosexist patriarchal society based on power. Interestingly, these associations are the ones that queer theory specifically questions in its recent theoretical conceptualization.

The “code of cultural masculinity,” where both masculinity and heterosexuality function together as the power symbolic of the military, was evidenced in many ways at the Stanford Prison and also at Abu Ghraib prison. At Abu Ghraib and during the

Stanford experiment, both situations evidenced homosexual torture techniques to exploit

43 culturally constructed attitudes about masculinity and fears of homosexuality.

Zimbardo’s paradigm for analysis does not show the importance of sex, gender, and sexuality as themselves torture techniques, which were used against both Iraqi detainees and Zimbardo’s American prisoners. At both Abu Ghraib and also at Stanford, prisoners were made to endure humiliation and torture that can be understood as homoerotic in nature.

Regarding Zimbardo’s experiment, male prisoners were dressed in very plain women’s dresses that went down to their knees, and were given no undergarments. This outfit symbolizes the feminization of the prisoners, as their clothing is actually gendered in concept and revealing as a form of masculine humiliation. The “phallus” is actually feminized given the vulnerability of the genitals themselves. Although these outfits were not “sexy” in the typical fashion of the adult entertainer, they did function in a pornographic way, as genitals were exposed and nakedness was evident in movement.

In this way, masculinity was taken away through the characterization of prisoners as women, and since they were actually wearing what Zimbardo himself called a “dress”

(Musen and Zimbardo 1991). This is an attempt to make the male prisoners feel exposed and powerless, as this image of the prisoner goes against the masculine power symbolic, and literally “strips” protective clothing away from men, thereby making them vulnerable and thus characterized as culturally feminine.

Additional humiliation of prisoners can be understood in Zimbardo’s experiment, and as similar to Abu Ghraib, through the sexually humiliating punishment by the guards for prisoners to “get down and fuck the floor” (Gibney 2006). This is an example of guards toying with prisoners to establish control through the use of raw sex.

44

Additionally, at the Stanford prison, there was a mock wedding between the bride of

Frankenstein (played by one male prisoner) and Frankenstein (played by another), where these prisoners were forced to say “I love you Frankenstein” to his male-pseudo wife.

One prisoner is depicted in this arrangement with his arms around the other prisoner’s neck, and both bodies are forcibly pressed together by the guard instructing the action.

This example uses drag roles and forced transexuality as a means of humiliation, and questions heterosexuality and masculinity with the stated “I love you [prisoner] 2093” and the wedding theme itself (Gibney 2006).

What is telling about how Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study came to an end is that it had to do with Zimbardo’s then girlfriend, now wife, Christina Maslach Zimbardo.

Zimbardo took Maslach to the basement of the Stanford psychology building to show her the experiment and her reaction was that of disgust and disbelief. Her response to

Zimbardo was that the study had changed him somehow and she stated that “I’m not sure

I want anything to do with you if you continue this study” (Gibney 2006). It was that day that Zimbardo ended the study. What is so telling about this ending is that it was effected by Zimbardo’s girlfriend, a woman, who clearly demonstrated a position of power in that her reaction gave Zimbardo the impetus to see the study for its unethical

nature. Had Zimbardo analyzed his study in terms of gender, surely this dynamic would

have been exposed, as would have other connections of gender, sex, and sexuality.

The sexualized abuse at Abu Ghraib can best be understood not only through an analysis of the photographs of abuse, but also through an analysis of testimony regarding

the sexual nature of the abuse. The American military’s heterosexism and masculinist

power symbolic can be seen through the characterization of soldiers who did not

45 participate in the abuse, where homoeroticism was used as torture device (sodomy, simulated fellatio, etc.). I am concerned about what homoerotic torture says about gender, masculinity, and power, and make the argument that the abuses at Abu Ghraib follow along in the footsteps of wider practices and attitudes of discrimination within

American culture.

Regarding the abuse at Abu Ghraib, consider the guards who opposed or did not participate in prisoner abuse. At Abu Ghraib, the rallying call for abusing prisoners was

“Go get some,” which itself has a sexual connotation. If you did not participate you were characterized as a “pussy” (non-masculine, with the vagina referenced being historically the location of femininity itself, also a discriminatory identification for a male homosexual…not a word denoting powerful masculinity). Those who did not participate admitted during the courts-martial that they were in fear for their lives from other

American soldiers and that they slept with their rifles at night. These were now

American military soldiers who were given the status of “imprisoned guard,” clinging to their rifles in the dark, afraid of what might jump out of the shadows. This can be conceptualized as an Abu Ghraib within Abu Ghraib, or a Stanford Prison Experiment within a Stanford Prison Experiment. Making an American guard a “prisoner” in characterization is the equivalent of making those who did not participate “the other”— the symbolic terrorist who is not quite masculine enough for the military, and who is worthy of the same fear of bodily harm as that of the detainees. What does fear say about the American military and about masculinity? I argue that the soldier who shows fear goes against the masculinist and heterosexist code of the military (Don’t Ask, Don’t

Tell) and is contrary to the image of the macho soldier. Additionally, I argue that the

46 homophobic nature of the military and the associated legislated anti-gay attitude only serves to reify this stereotype of masculinity and its code.

During the England trial, Jeremy Sivits stated that in order to cover-up these actions of abuse, Staff Sergeant Frederick told those who were there “you did not see shit!” In addition, Specialist Wisdom testified that while he was at Tier 1-A, he saw

prisoners running their sandbag-covered heads into the wall, and also saw naked

detainees entangled on top of each other. Wisdom stated that he saw Graner hit

detainees and pose with them, and that he saw Frederick punch a detainee. At that point,

Wisdom claimed that he left the area where the abuse was taking place, and literally

“walked out the door” and “told Sergeant Jones everything.” Jones told him he would

handle it, and told him to go back to the site of the incident. When shown pictures of this abuse (specifically the images of Graner about to hit a detainee, arm cocked back with a blue-green glove on, Davis stomping of prisoners’ toes, and Frederick punching a prisoner in the side of the chest), Wisdom stated that he was asked “Are you going to get some of this?” Additionally, Wisdom stated under oath that the detainees were not fighting back in any way. As a matter of fact, when Wisdom saw naked detainees forced to masturbate, with one on his knees with his mouth open, and the other standing, he claimed that another soldier Elliott said to him “Do you see what they do when we leave them alone?” At the end of his testimony, Wisdom claimed that given his experiences at

Abu Ghraib and also of the trials that he would no longer consider his lifelong and original goals of pursuing a military career as an MP. After these experiences, this was no longer an option for him.

47

When Jones took the stand at the England trial, he corroborated and added to

Wisdom’s testimony, saying “Wisdom came to me. I told him to go back to work.” Jones tried to explain to Wisdom that this was “justified use of force” and Wisdom was too

“young” to understand- a seemingly feminine trait. Jones stated under oath that he thought this was just “normal stuff” and that Wisdom was being sensitive, an

“unmasculine” characterization for sure, and especially in terms of the macho military soldier ideal. Jones had been in the US Army for thirteen years and at the time of his testimony worked as a police officer in Baltimore. Wisdom came back to Jones a second time, and then Jones confronted Frederick about the incident. Jones said that Frederick denied what had happened. Per Jones’ request, Wisdom was actually reassigned to another duty and location, and Jones would not allow Wisdom to work or visit Tier 1-A for the duration of his stay at Abu Ghraib. At the Harman trial, Jones’ testimony was the exact same, and during a very short cross-examination by defense co-attorney Captain

Takemura, she said to him that it was hard to believe that this incident was never reported up the chain of command. Jones just shrugged his shoulders.

At the England courts-martial, Graner again took the stand, this time when the defense called him, and stated that the naked piling of detainees was a way of organizing prisoners that he needed to process. These detainees, he stated, were being disruptive

and talking, and finally Grainer claimed that he decided to put them in a naked pyramid

so that he could control them better. This pyramid, he believed, would allow for this control because if one prisoner tried to move then the others would fall, and it would be

more difficult for them to cause a distraction. Graner pointed out that he did not have

any zip-ties to use as restraints for detainees, and that this was the best idea he could

48 come up with to control the unruly prisoners. In addition to the pyramid, Graner stacked naked detainees on top of each other in sexually explicit ways as a means for control.

Graner also stated that it was MI who ordered that the prisoners masturbate on each other.

However, I argue that this tactic was not only about controlling prisoners, but was also

directed at humiliating and “feminizing” the prisoners such that they were objectified and

“othered,” where culturally constructed boundaries of masculinity were crossed in an

attempt to punish through humiliation itself. Additionally, there was added humiliation

to male Iraqi prisoners as these humiliations were done in front of the American female

guards. Interestingly, Graner admitted on the stand that there were some restraint

procedures that he felt uncomfortable with, although he did not elaborate this detail.

Nonetheless, I still wonder what these procedures might have been. Graner further

stated that as cells became available, he put the detainees into them instead of following

MI orders to force masturbation. Even so, Graner stated on the stand that “I [he] did

nothing wrong because nobody, prisoners or otherwise, were hurt.”

During the Harman courts-martial, and during the prosecution’s testimony during

the sentencing phase, it was as if the prosecution itself was offering up a ready-made

defense because in many instances, the prosecution’s witnesses provided testimony that

only aided in Harman’s defense. Many of the same individuals testified and stated

similar things in their testimonies.

Specialist Israel Rivera took the stand, and added to the theme of fear and

intimidation among the soldiers engaging in the abuse. Rivera testified that Specialist

Cruz invited him to join in the punishment of three Iraqi detainees who were thought to

be “rapists.” Rivera followed Cruz, and witnessed the three prisoners rolling, crawling,

49 and being verbally abused. They were cut and bleeding from abrasions caused by the concrete floor. Rivera said he stood watching, and was shocked, and that he did nothing.

Defense co-attorney Captain Takemura asked him if the government had made a deal with him to drop charges against him if he testified against Harman. Yes, he answered, and rattled off the possible charges against him: conspiracy, maltreatment, and dereliction of duty. Interestingly, these are the same charges that were leveled at

Harman! Captain PT Takemura established that Harman was not in any photos taken of the abusive incident of October 25, 2003, and Rivera agreed. Takemaura then asked

Rivera what the soldiers did wrong that night, and he answered that they had a duty to protect the detainees, that they failed to protect them, and made no attempt to make it stop. When asked why he did not attempt to stop the abuse, Rivera answered “I was afraid. They had authority and rank. It seemed foolish to say, ‘What are you guys doing?” He added that if they were willing to do this to detainees, why wouldn’t they do it to him?

Sociologically speaking, Rivera comes across as a “pussy” in the masculine construction of the US Army. The phrase “don’t be a pussy” was actually often used by

soldiers speaking to each other when one of them did not want to participate in the abuse.

In addition, River admitted that he was afraid, which goes against the unwritten Army

code of masculine behavior. To prosecute Rivera for these passive crimes would have

embarrassed the US Army and its constructed “code” (Baudrillard) of masculinity.

Thus, it was far less embarrassing to level the same charges against a female homosexual soldier, and namely Harman.

50

Additionally, it is interesting that this confession of fear was made to a female defense attorney, Captain Takemaura. Takemaura spoke softly in the courtroom, and sometimes so softly that the judge requested that she speak louder. She came across as a motherly figure that cared about the experiences of the soldiers that she questioned during their testimony, and she genuinely did care. In this way, Takemaura provided a safe space for male soldiers to admit their fears of retaliation and retribution. Hence,

Takemaura had a use-value as a “motherly” female in the courtroom, where her gendered

performance functioned as a tool for obtaining information from those on the stand—

information that might not have come out if questioned by a male attorney.

Captain Reese, the company commander at Abu Ghraib, testified concerning the

deplorable living conditions for detainees and soldiers alike at Abu Ghraib, citing things such as insufficient food and water, contaminated water, toilets that were so unsanitary they had to be boarded up, filth, stench, and an overall primitive living atmosphere. The

Prosecutor asked Captain Reese whether it was true that the detainees wore women’s

panties on their heads because of supply problems, which included a shortage of clothing

for the detainees—and the Major answered “Yes sir.” What struck me as strange is that it

is a fact that the detainees came to Abu Ghraib wearing their own clothes. So, what

happened to their clothes after they were stripped naked? Short of giving detainees

women’s panties to wear—sometimes on their heads—as protection against the cold and

humiliation, was the US Army truly incapable of giving them blankets, or in desperation,

purchasing clothing for them in Baghdad? Harman disclosed privately to me that male

soldiers were sent into Baghdad specifically for the purpose of buying Iraqi women’s

panties. No doubt, these same soldiers could have been given the mission of purchasing

51 more appropriate clothing. The military judge looked down and away, and the jurors did the same, following this exchange, and the Major was quickly dismissed.

These examples of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison show that the mostly male soldiers at Abu Ghraib were reified and heralded when they acted in typically masculine ways with regard to abuse, especially Grainer and Frederick who acted in stereotypically masculine ways such as punching, beating, and forcing others to be humiliated.

Additionally, these testimonies exposed the weak, powerless and vulnerable position of other male soldiers such as Wisdom and Rivera who did not participate in abuse, and who came across as passive and stereotypically feminine “pussys.” Additionally, the confessions of weakness made by other male soldiers were themselves an embarrassment to the US Army and its image of the macho-instrumental soldier, and contrary to the masculinist and heterosexist ideal of the military itself. This was most evident in the dramatic testimony of SPC Israel Rivera, the 19-year-old MI who testified that he was afraid to stop the abuse he was witnessing out of fear for his life, where what he was scared of was that his fellow-soldiers would abuse him physically had he protested.

Thus, through a consideration of the testimony that was given at the England and

Harman courts-martial, what is missing in Zimbardo’s paradigm for explaining the abuse at Abu Ghraib is an analysis of the connections with regard to power or maleness, masculinity, and heterosexuality. This kind of analysis explains the homoerotic nature of the abuse and the evidenced sexualized and feminized torture techniques. I argue that a fuller account of the abuse at both locations, the Stanford Prison Study and also Abu

Ghraib, can be understood in terms of the connections between sex and gender, power, and sexuality, and that what is missing in Zimbardo’s account of the abuse during his

52 prison study, and his application of his study to Abu Ghraib, is this specific kind of analysis.

As I have argued, it seems initially that experiments such as Zimbardo’s and

Milgram’s can explain the abuse at Abu Ghraib. However, I maintain that these paradigms either do not apply, or only show partly why the abuse took place.

Specifically, these experiments do not fully account for the anomic absence of authority

and the lacking of Riesman’s “moral compass” that was non-existent at Abu Ghraib.

Through the use of additional perspectives such as an analysis of the connections

between sex, gender and sexuality with regard to power, and an analysis of the gendered

masculine and heterosexist nature of American culture and military, additional narratives

about prisoner abuse are formed. Because the above are not considered by Zimbardo’s

paradigm, I argue that Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study does neither fully elucidate nor

make significance sense of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

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3. GENDER, POWER, AND THE “RATIONALIZATION” OF RATIONALITY:

USES OF THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE SYMBOLIC NARRATIVES

Media depictions, popular perception, and academic explanations for the

infamous incidents at Abu Ghraib have utilized conceptions of chaos as a means to

describe and explain the abuse. In this section, rationality and chaos as descriptors are

analyzed and probed via a gendered lens to demonstrate that both have become collective

symbols that works to obscure and repress the cultural and emotional harms of

inadequacy, shame, reprisal and barbarism that Abu Ghraib reflects back to the world's

collective consiousnesses. In this vein, the section demonstrates that rationality and chaos have becomes narratives and means to repress additional gendered explanations of what occurred in Saddam Hussein's former torture chambers- now owned and operated by the American military. By demonstrating the rationality associated with modernity and its link to masculine and patriarchal systems, the section uses a gender analysis to demonstrate the rational and logically constructed symbols of both “rationality” and

“chaos” that most now use to garner a non-understanding of Abu Ghraib's horrors.

I provide a discussion of the chaos associated with Abu Ghraib prison and how

this chaos does not fit into modernist narratives of rationality and order, where I equate

order and rationality with the masculine symbolic code. In this way, I describe the

illusory order and actual chaos at Abu Ghraib as gendered. Nonetheless, both the rhetoric

of order and chaos obscures an additional explanation for the abuses, namely the

masculinist and barbaric environment that was indicative of pejorative conditions and

was responsible for the maltreatment of detainees.

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Additionally, I discuss Foucault’s narrative of modernist power structures, and here I am especially interested in how power was used to punish both the body and soul at Abu Ghraib. Foucault's identification of the body as the principal target of power has been used by feminists to analyze contemporary forms of social control over women's bodies and minds. This becomes an important discussion of power coupled with gender in that bodies and souls (both American and Iraqi) were punished at Abu Ghraib—Iraqi women and children were held as bargaining chips at Abu Ghraib, dogs were used to intimidate Iraqi prisoners, nakedness in front of women as a means for control, and panties were put on male prisoner’s heads thereby “feminizing” them.

I also discuss how Foucault’s identification of the body as the principal target of power actually provides a kind of social control over the prisoners’ bodies and souls/minds at Abu Ghraib, and especially given the gendered and associated sexualized nature of this torture, and the associated violation of Iraqi cultural constructions of masculinity.

In addition, punishment coupled with power and gender can be applied to

American soldiers’ experiences of Abu Ghraib, where both male and female soldiers openly disclosed that they were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from the abuse they suffered and witnessed in Iraq and at Abu Ghraib.

3.1 The Enlightenment Project and Rationality

Modernist theory paradigmatically rests upon a foundation of reason and rationality as the privileged locus for both objectivity and claims of universal truth.

Within this theoretical canopy, ideas of justice, fairness, and liberty have been conceptualized as products of the Western Enlightenment Project. As a part of this

55 modernist paradigm, reason is defined as a coherent and healthy balance that is equated

with sanity itself, such that rationality is understood as the discernment of common sense

intellect and the empirically verifiable organization of logic. It is through the connection

of these concepts that Western modern societies are structured. This paradigm of modern

thought, which directly informs foundational modern theoretical presuppositions, in turn

comes to define notions of the "good," and thus serves to both reify and maintain given

modernist social constructions of reason and rationality. Furthermore, these modernist presuppositions instruct social conceptual schemes from which society is understood and

organized. It is in this way that modernist notions of reason and rationality become the

symbolic measure for theorizing and conceptualization. These constructions themselves come to represent and function as the standard for thought, order, and the very basis of

what some consider "respectable science."

However, many have argued that modernist grand-narrative schema serve to

facilitate an oppressive and privileged position that is justified with reference to only

certain conceptions of reason and rationality, namely those conceptions of the socially

powerful (Rosenau 1992, McGowan 1991; Sarup 1993; Zimmerman 1997). Feminist

theorists, for example, argue in different ways that the voices or perspectives of those

with little social power, women in this case, are silenced within modernist conceptual schemes ordered around patriarchal societies. This line of argument rests upon the idea that those with social power are able to dictate the standard of reason itself, thereby delineating its benchmark. This grand-narrative of reason serves as the basis for theory construction and informs feminist examinations of how science is done or understood

(Fox-Keller [1985]1995; Fox-Keller and Longino 1996; Longino 1990; Longino 1986),

56 how knowledge is created (Abbott and Wallace 1996; Fraser and Nicholson 1990;

Harding 1998; Harding 1993; Harding 1991; Harding 1987; Harding 1986; Stapleton

2000) how gender is conceptualized (Butler 1999; Butler 1993a; Butler 1993b; Butler

[1990]1999; Butler 2004; Beauvoir 1952; Fausto-Sterling 2000), how sex categories are

understood (Balsamo 1996; Oudshoorn 1991), how sexuality comes to be understood

(Fausto-Sterling 2000; Freud [1962]2000; Livingston 1991; Nestle 1984; Rich 1980;

Rubin 1984; Rubin 2002; Sedgwick 1990; Snitow 1983; Terry 1999; Vance 1984),

among many other modes of feminist conjecture.

In a like manner, building on Adorno and Horkheimer (1979), some

postmodernists argue that the modernist paradigm is at odds with the aims of

enlightenment and liberation, thereby resulting in an invalid and contradictory logical

system. Specifically, these theorists claim that through the marking of the conceptual

boundaries of “reason” and “rationality,” this coupling instead subtly masks modes of

domination, forms of oppression, and sites of control (Ahmed 1992; Baudrillard

([1995]2002); Baudrillard 1994; Baudrillard([1979]1990); Baudrillard 1981; Baudrillard

2003; Bauman 1992; Best and Kellner 1991; Butler 1999; Butler 1993a; Butler 1993b;

Connor 1997; Derrida 1978; Foucault 1988; Foucault 1972; Giddens 1990; Giddens

1992; Haraway 1991; Haraway 1997a; Haraway 1997b; Haraway 2004; Irigaray 1985;

Jameson 1991; Lyotard ([1979]1984); Lutz 1995; Mestrovic 1994; Mestrovic 1993;

Mestrovic 1992; Mestrovic 1991; Rorty 1989; Rosenau 1992). In this way, modernist

conceptions of reason and rationality become paradoxical and irreconcilable with the

stated goals of the Enlightenment project itself, such that both actual suffering and

theoretical casualties result— the seeming impotence of modern theory construction.

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Thus, although reason and rationality ostensibly promise order and structure, these concepts can be shown to actually produce malice and oppression as well. Indeed, it is sometimes even the case that accounts of rationality are themselves “rationalized” in an attempt to pragmatically fit the existing modernist theoretical canopy.

3.2 The Prison: Abu Ghraib

Consider the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. First, it was built by Saddam Hussein as a modern prison to control, in Foucault’s scheme, the minds and souls of the prisoners as opposed to torturing their bodies. Paradoxically, it came to serve as a site of torture of the body under both Saddam Hussein’s regime, as well as the American liberation and occupation. Second, the prison itself is about the size of an average airport in the United

States, thus exhibiting its domination over the built and created environment. Third, the

“phallic” panopticon at Abu Ghraib stands out visibly in all photos of the prison. For

Foucault, the towering panopticon serves the function of controlling prisoners through surveillance such that the prisoners are never certain when they are under the gaze.

Finally, despite these modernist features, Abu Ghraib during American occupation was vulnerable to attacks, defenseless, porous to Iraqis, and incapable of surveillance in

Foucault’s sense. It was chosen by the U.S. Army to serve as a prison again, this time in the middle of an active war zone, which also contradicts Foucault.

Under the modernist paradigm, one would have expected this American run prison to exhibit all of the characteristics of a McDonalized society: efficiency, rationality, prediction, and control (Ritzer 2004; Ritzer 2003; Ritzer 1993). Interestingly, these are also gendered characterizations of masculinity within modernist patriarchal paradigms. Applying McDonalized characteristics to Abu Ghraib would mean, for

58 example, that the prison would have been well supplied with food, water, medical supplies, clothing, and other things, up to and including the rules of engagement and the rules of detention and interrogation. Instead, the US government’s own reports, as well as testimony at the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse trials at Ft Hood, Texas, disclosed chaos with regard to all of these phenomenon: food and water were scarce (even for the

American soldiers); supposedly there was no clothing for the detainees to wear and that is why many were housed naked; the Rules of the Geneva Convention were never posted; soldiers did not know what the rules of engagement were as they were changing everyday; and Military Intelligence (MI) and Military Police (MP) roles were blurred and confusing. Interestingly, the association of duties between the MI’s and MP’s was itself a failsafe system of checks and balances that was itself disregarded. All of these examples point to the irrational, barbaric, and harshness associated with the experiences of Abu

Ghraib, which I argue led to cultural and emotional harms of the prisoners there, and harms also for the American soldiers.

Examining testimony, everyone who was asked about the state of the prison at

Abu Ghraib testified that the conditions were deplorable, and especially given the constant attacks made on the prison itself. Many stated that it was not a “normal prison,” as its detainee population included a combination of women, children, terrorists, and common criminals as prisoners.

On May 16, 2005, Captain Reese, the first witness for the defense at the courts- martial of Sabrina Harman stated in open court that Abu Ghraib had “less than favorable living conditions” and that soldiers “lived in jail cells” which were dirty and littered with unusable medical paraphernalia. At this same trial, although during the sentencing phase

59 on May 17, 2005, Major DiNenna also described the conditions of Abu Ghraib as appalling, with trash, debris, and evidence of looting throughout the prison. He specifically called the prison a “trash hole,” and noted not only that wild dogs inhabited the compound itself, but also that the porta-johns at the prison were filthy and sometimes overflowing because they had not been pumped. Major DiNenna testified that most of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison were sickly, where cases of vomiting and diarrhea were commonplace among them. Additionally, Major DiNenna stated under oath that there were not enough medical personnel and that there were 2-3 medical evacuations per day.

Additionally, Captain Reese commented on the high level of insurgency in the area around the prison, with constant mortar attacks made on the prison itself. Major

DiNenna’s testimony further described the external environment at Abu Ghraib as having

“a high level of daily threat.” Major DiNenna described the lack of lighting at Abu

Ghraib, where nightly attacks took place in conditions with no internal lighting. The lighting used each night at Abu Ghraib consisted of military vehicles surrounding the prison and turning on their headlights for visibility inside of the prison. The lighting inside of the prison literally came from vehicle headlights located outside of the prison.

This situation was “incredibly dangerous, with low morale and high stress” stated Major

DiNenna. In a word, these courtroom depictions of Abu Ghraib are themselves barbaric, where masculinist reason has mutated into representations of the female symbolic of inadequacy.

Regarding prisoner uprisings at the hard site of Abu Ghraib (the actual prison versus the tent prison outside), Major DiNenna stated that these events took place because of lack of food, overcrowding (6-7 prisoners per cell), the mixing of Sunni and

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Shiites, and lengthy prisoner detentions. He even claimed that some prisoners had not been talked to regarding why they were being held for six or more months after initially being detained at Abu Ghraib. These uprisings were acts of reprisal for neglect and

abandonment, and the absence of any rational system for prisoner processing that one

might have expected at an American run prison.

On the topic of food and water at Abu Ghraib, Major DiNenna described the food

at Abu Ghraib as undercooked, dirty, containing glass and debris, as well as “rat poop.”

He described the water conditions at Abu Ghraib as scarce, and stated that soldiers and

detainees had access to only two liters of water per day for all activities such as drinking

and washing. Furthermore, and against the military’s protocol, Major DiNenna testified

that sometimes military MRE’s were used to feed detainees, which resulted in a long and

tedious situation for guards, as they had to strip MREs of pork products for cultural

reasons, and had to remove Tabasco sauce bottles because they could be used as a

weapon. In his testimony, Major DiNenna stated that “prisoners had nothing to do all

day but come up with ways to make weapons,” resulting in a further threat to guards.

Major DiNenna also stated under oath “The feeling at Abu Ghraib was that we had been

abandoned, and that this was a forgotten mission because there were no resources for the

‘city’ of Abu Ghraib.” A gendered reading of being “forgotten” given the savage

conditions of Abu Ghraib can be equated with the second-class citizenship that women in

patriarchal societies still face around the world, where women themselves are prisoners

of these masculinist systems.

Still further evidence of irrationality and the lack of prediction and control at Abu

Ghraib were evident in Captain Reese’s additional testimony that the Iraqi police officers

61 at Abu Ghraib were corrupt, and that there was not adequate personnel to deal with the prisoners. Captain Reese stated that American military personnel worked 12-hour shifts with no days off, and that really 2-3 more companies were needed to ideally run the prison effectively. Major DiNenna further claimed that there was a high level of internal threat to the American military given the large numbers of prisoners versus the small number of guards. DiNenna even stated that there was such a low ratio of prisoners to guards that he postulated about 150 prisoners or more to each guard at Abu Ghraib, with guard’s stress levels elevated by working what he thought were 12-16 hours per day.

Major DiNenna, like Captain Reese, also noted the corruptness of Iraqi correctional officers and police, who participated in bribes and shakedowns, and who smuggled in weapons such as handguns and razors, and let detainees free during work details. There was some confusion, according to Major DiNenna, for the American guards in identifying Iraqi prisoners versus correctional officers because of the shortage of supplies, as there were no uniforms available that would signify roles and distinction— guard versus detainee. Thus, American guards were responsible for monitoring Iraqi detainees, Iraqi correctional officers, and also Iraqi police given the lack of organization, shortage of supplies, and corruption of Iraqi personnel. This corruption, confusion, and lack of organization are all mutations of masculinist and modernist rationality, where atrocious and uncivilized conditions were experienced by actual individuals at Abu

Ghraib.

When asked about detainee care, Captain Reese stated under oath that prisoners were kept naked in cells as part of a MI tactic. Interestingly, Captain Reese postulated that this could also be a supply issue, or maybe that the inmates had removed their own

62 clothing because they were “psycho.” However, gender can be applied here too, where nakedness is equated with feminine vulnerability and prisoner control using nakedness is an attempt to maintain the compliance and subordination of prisoners to guards.

Compliance and subordination are two narratives of women’s experiences in patriarchal societies. Moreover, humiliation through the use of nakedness can be analyzed in terms of gender such that further humiliation of male Iraqi detainees was caused because these prisoners were naked in front of female guards, a violation of Iraqi constructions of masculinity.

Additionally, Captain Reese stated the prisoners in Tier 1A and 1B were “people with intelligence value,” although he admitted that prisoners were mixed together in a

“hodgepodge” because there was little room at the prison for detainees, thereby providing a contradictory account of detainee value in Tier 1A and 1B. This becomes problematic because some of the prisoners were just common criminals, some were Iraqi prisoners that were “CID holds” (Criminal Investigative Division) ((This is a fact omitted in the

U.S. Government reports, namely, that not only were some prisoners “MI holds” to be

interrogated, but the Criminal Investigative Division had its own separate prisoners and

the reason for this has not been explored.), others were detainees that were being investigated by other government agencies (OGA) (such as the CIA, and the dozen or so other secret agencies such as the Navy, National Security Agency, etc.), and some prisoners were even “ghost detainees,” or prisoners who were not accounted for by record or number as located at Abu Ghraib. These “ghost detainees” were of high value to the military and, according to Captain Reese, were brought in through “the backdoor,” with no prisoner numbers assigned to them and with strict instructions to “not let anyone talk

63 to them, MI would be back to check on them.” This is a chaotic system of prisoner order at Abu Ghraib, as situations that caused harm to both prisoners and American guards existed in consequence. Prisoners faced physical abuse in the form of torture and emotional confusion about their detained status, and guards experienced confusion about

their duties and regulations—all mutations of the supposed rational system one might

expect in place.

Additionally, women and children were kept at Abu Ghraib prison in Tier 1B,

which Major DiNenna described as the only place available for segregation of women

and children. He stated under oath that women and children were brought into Abu

Ghraib if a male in their family was arrested, and under the guise of possibly offering a

kind of protection. However, it came out in court later that women and children were

used as a means for bargaining, where males could turn themselves in so that their female

family members would be released from Abu Ghraib. This was evidenced specifically in

that women and children were given no listed offense on their capture tags, which were

functionally useful with regard to specifying crimes committed thereby leading to arrest

and confinement at Abu Ghraib. This rationalization for keeping female prisoners thus

crumbles in terms of motivation when learned that women were kept for bribery

purposes. Additionally, this system of bribery uses women as objects for trade for their

male family members, representing further instances of female subordination at Abu

Ghraib.

Captain Reese also stated under oath that there was no outline at the prison about

how to treat prisoners (as of October 2, 2003), and hence alluded to an absence of

detainee treatment guidelines. The American soldiers at Abu Ghraib were supposed to

64 guard all types of prisoners, some considered as having especially valuable intelligence, yet the guards had no additional training to handle these special prisoners, and had no guidance of distinction for inmate control. Thus, prisoners were all mixed together, even sickly and contagious prisoners with outbreaks of tuberculosis, according to Captain

Reese. It is interesting to note here that during the Harman courts-martial it was stated that the actual orders given by Romero, a superior officer to the “rotten-apples” or low- ranking soldiers of Abu Ghraib, regarding detainee treatment and interrogation tactics was itself an unlawful order of instruction—“do anything, but don’t kill.”

What is more, Major DiNenna’s testimony, as well as at least five other soldier’s testimony (Joyner, Wisdom, Jones, Darby, and Rivera), echoed that of Captain Reese’s

description of the conditions at Abu Ghraib. Thus the descriptions of Abu Ghraib were

widely corroborated as inefficient, irrational, uncontrolled, and incalculable. All of the

examples of irrationality, inefficiency and lack of prediction and control at Abu Ghraib

are instances of mutations of masculinist and modernist rationality schema.

From the point of view of a rationally run bureaucracy, one would have expected

that Abu Ghraib would have both a reliable chain of command in place, and that they

would have also followed US Army protocol for responsibility. In the myth of American

dominance and the Western Enlightenment Project, the US Army is heralded as the best

army in the world; hence, the US army is regarded as the most organized, efficient,

responsible, and moral. After all, Americans are the good guys and not the terrorists,

right? Nevertheless, evidence instead shows the lack of this kind of bureaucratic order.

For example, the officers high in the chain of command were exempted completely from

all culpability and all responsibility for the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and all responsibility

65 was shifted onto the lowest ranking soldiers. To this day, the Army has not determined who was in charge of the prison as the commanding officer: Colonel Thomas M.

Pappas? Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum? Brigadier General Janice Karpinski (now

Colonel Karpinski)?

Additionally, the government’s own reports substantiated the testimonial claims of the courts-martial with the indication that almost none of the paperwork required to be filed by protocol was actually filed. Instead, considering military reports, the Taguba

Report found that any filing system was “nonexistent” and there were no “lessons learned” Army files (Taguba report, filed by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, concerning

the alleged abuse of prisoners by members of the 800th Military Police Brigade at the

Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad; ordered by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of

Joint Task Force-7, the senior U.S. military official in Iraq, following persistent

allegations of human rights abuses at the prison of Abu Ghraib). Moreover, there were

no “interrogation plans” filed, and in general, the US Army admits that the prison was

run on an ad hoc, learn as you go along and on-the-job-training basis (Taguba Report).

(Remember Romero’s impromptu order of “do anything, but don’t kill.”)

As well, the US Army protocol requires the ratio of one military guard to fifteen prisoners, but in reality the ratio at Abu Ghraib was one guard to 200 prisoners. The US government reports (Jones and Fay) state that the Army knew that overcrowding was a serious issue, but failed to remedy the situation, and still fails to do so (Strasser and

Whitney 2004). As of this writing Abu Ghraib is still overcrowded with reported an average of 5,000 prisoners. Moreover, the government reports state that approximately

80% of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were not insurgents, and were not “terrorists,” but

66 were ordinary Iraqis such as taxi drivers, persons mistakenly arrested during sweeps, or even hostages (Strasser et al., 2004). In addition, women and children were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib as bargaining chips for obtaining information. The absurdity of this situation is that most of the prisoners did not have the information that the Army wanted

(Strasser et al., 2004). Hence, the “feminine” irrational symbolic comes to replace the organized and coherent system, which was seemingly based upon reason as its template.

To illustrate this paradox of stated Enlightenment goals versus the actual chaos at

Abu Ghraib, consider the prosecuting attorney’s explanation of why prisoners wore Iraqi panties on their heads. Captain Christopher Graveline (the prosecutor for both Specialist

Sabrina Harman and Private Lynndie England) stated that the reason for the panties on the heads of the detainees was that there was a shortage of supplies of clothing, so that

American soldiers were sent into Baghdad to purchase Iraqi panties as “clothing.”

Captain Graveline made this statement in open court on May 16th 2005, and Major

DiNenna, the supply officer for AG, concurred with this statement on the stand, saying

“yes sir” to the prosecuting counselor. Interestingly, this “clothing” was seemingly used as a technique for humiliating detainees, as it was placed on their heads, and was not used as a cover or barrier against the environment or as part of a prisoner uniform. A feminist

application of Foucault’s contention that the body is the principal site of power in modern

society is useful in explaining the social control of Iraqi prisoners in terms of their bodies, masculinity, and sexuality. In this case, humiliation was the power that was used to control the masculine body through the use of feminine panties, where Iraqi cultural constructions of masculinity were themselves mocked with feminine objects of

67 humiliation. This violation of the cultural code of constructed masculinity thus results in shame, compunction, and chagrin for the Iraqi prisoners.

Nonetheless, many testimonies supplied evidence that nakedness was common and was used to control bodies, and was not a lack of supply issue. What is more, one only has to consider that these detainees were arrested or detained while wearing clothing, and did not all arrive at Abu Ghraib prison naked. So clothes were at one point

available; however, it was common practice to control the body through nudity, and it

was repeated in court over and again that it was a detention technique to strip detainees

naked. Social control was thus a product of power as applied to the body in gendered

ways that offended cultural constructions of gender itself, where nakedness is associated

with feminine vulnerability and masculine control over the naked “feminized” body is

evidenced by the guards.

In these outlined ways, the descriptions of Abu Ghraib evidenced the lacking of

“masculine” order, control and rationality associated with the modernist Enlightenment

paradigm. Hence, chaos as an explanation for the disorder and abuse at Abu Ghraib can

actually be understood in a gendered manner, where chaos comes to represent

conceptions of the female symbolic narrative of vulnerability, disorganization, and

emotionality—all binary opposite characterizations of reason and rationality.

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Figure 3, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Panties on Head” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

3.3 Foucault and Power

On the face of it, it might seem that prisoner abuse was a means for establishing what Foucault labels as the power of the sovereign (Foucault 1988; Foucault

[1977]1995). In a modernist patriarchal society, this “sovereign” is associated with

masculinity such that power is aligned with the male perspective. At Abu Ghraib,

punitive abuse was used as a means for the goal of creating a power relationship (those in

control versus prisoners) in a chaotic setting. For example, Major General Miller is quoted in the Frontline: The Torture Question, PBS documentary (Kirk and Gilmore,

2005) as stating words to the effect “unless the detainees feel like dogs everyday, you’re

not doing your job properly.” Considering the photographs below, there is clear evidence

that the use of dogs as a means of disciplinary power, as well as to play off of Iraqi fear

of dogs and beliefs that dogs taint religiosity, attempted to create a sense of order itself.

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Through the use of dogs to scare prisoners, a power relation was created that depicted the

“masculine” power of the guards and the “feminine” vulnerability of prisoners.

Additionally, it was documented in the Fay Report that civilians employed by the military used dogs to scare prisoners, hit them, and encouraged soldiers to abuse them (see photo

2 and 3) (Mann 2004; Strasser 2004). These are examples of raw masculinist power over the body through the use of force and in an attempt to create a means for control.

Figure 4, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Fear of Dogs” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

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Figure 5, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Fear of Dogs 2” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

Ironically, and in contra distinction to Foucault, the use of power by the American military became a disruptive force, or understood in terms of the irrational and chaotic feminine symbolic. Intended to bring apparent order in an environment of chaos,

American power-tactics actually produced more chaos, which can be understood as the by-product of mutated masculinist and modernist reason and rationality schema. Again, against Foucault, the reality of the situation at Abu Ghraib was that the sovereign was exerting power over both the soul and body. Moreover, the American soldiers did not

present themselves as exerting the power of the sovereign in a raw and naked sense.

Instead, the wolf-like power-tactics came in the sheep’s clothing of democracy and rule

of law, hidden in commands from officers who would never testify (because they were

given immunity) that they indeed ordered and provided training for these interrogation

tactics.

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For example, as shown in the courts-martial, detainees arriving at Abu Ghraib were handed a fly sheet, written in English, which stated words to the effect, “Welcome, you are now at an American run prison, you will be treated decently and humanely, and not like you were treated under Saddam Hussein’s regime.” The irony is that the detainees were treated as if they were detainees under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Foucault’s theory does not account for this subversion of the ideals of social order, democracy, and the enlightenment project.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Baudrillard wrote a book entitled Forget Foucault

([1977]1987). Foucault’s theory can be construed as a modernist attempt to depict a mere shift in the ordering principle of the Enlightenment from the body to the soul. To be sure, prior to the leak of the photographs, which depicted the abuse, Americans were received as using “psychological yet humane” methods of interrogation as required by the

US army field manual on interrogation, FM-34-52. In reality, FM 34-52 was rendered obsolete by various memorandums from the white house and Lt Gen Sanchez, such that the concepts of torture, interrogation, and abuse became unintelligible. This is an example of how a “standard” for prisoner treatment imploded in meaning such that it resulted in confusion and chaos with regards to interpretation.

Consider the following discussion about interrogation techniques and the treatment of detainees. In a statement released on November 4, 2005, Senator John

McCain described the amendment he offered regarding detainees held by the U.S.: “Mr.

President, I rise to offer an amendment that would (1) establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees and (2)

72 prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government” (McCain 2005). The amendment passed 90 to 9 in the U.S. Senate.

Nonetheless, there is chaos in this perception of order. First, the Army Field

Manual or FM 34-52 is not a long-lasting normative standard because it can be changed and because there exists confusion at the present time as to whether the 1987 or the 1992 versions (which differ greatly on the issue of how detainees should be treated) apply.

Indeed, the Senator seems to be aware of the tentative nature of FM 34-52 when he writes in his statement: “My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone—it could be changed at any time.” Hence, there is no standard being put forth with regard to detainee interrogation, and only a simulacrum of standard itself. Second, the latter part of the amendment is equally problematic because the terms “cruel,” “inhuman” and

“degrading” hold divergent meanings for different human actors, groups, and cultures

(Caldwell and Mestrovic 2006).

Both parts of the amendment have fairly long histories of debate and discussion:

The first part, regarding FM 34-52, is discussed at length in the Fay and Schlesinger reports as contributing to the overall “confusion” at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere that led to abuse. The second part was discussed in the media in the Fall of 2005 regarding CPT Ian

Fishback’s failed attempt at whistle blowing: many of his letters to commanding officers and to Senator McCain were published in The Washington Post (Priest and Wright,

2005), and indicated that he and other soldiers were confused as to the meaning of what constituted acceptable interrogation techniques versus cruel, inhuman, and degrading acts that constitute abuse (. The amendment that was passed by the U.S. Senate does not cite the Geneva Conventions, which offer a more fixed and stable normative standard in that

73 they have remained unchanged for many years, would require a consensus of many nations to be changed, and prohibit specific actions and behaviors that leave little room for interpretations (for example, nudity is flatly prohibited, so that no soldier has to decide whether forcing detainees to be nude is cruel, inhuman, or degrading) (Caldwell and Mestrovic, 2006).

This leads to a chaotic and confusing interpretation of what acceptable methods of detainee interrogation actually are, and shows that attempts to bring order and control to a chaotic situation actually resulted in the production of additional chaos. McCain’s amendment is part of what can be construed as a postmodern sea of circulating fictions regarding detainee abuse. The several circulating fictions include the following: that the abuse was confined to a few “rotten apples” at Abu Ghraib when the U.S. Government’s own reports document abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in Iraq; that the “interrogation techniques” were normative when the Government’s own reports concede that they were already out of sync with FM 34-52; that abuse occurred and occurs as the outcome of interrogation when ample testimony emerged at the courts- martial at Ft. Hood, Texas that the abuse was often done for sport and amusement, and not for any official purpose at all; and that the problem of abuse can be fixed by referring to ambiguous normative standards which are already cited as the source of confusion that led to abuse (Caldwell and Mestrovic, 2006).

All of the U.S. Government reports refer to the possible impact of a memorandum issued on September 14, 2003 by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez on abuse at Abu

Ghraib. The Schlesinger Report of August 2004 shows that “a list of techniques circulated from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to Iraq. . . . In August 2003, MG Geoffrey

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Miller . . . brought to Iraq the Secretary of Defense’s April 16, 2003 policy guidelines for

Guantanamo—which he reportedly gave to CJTF-7 as a potential model—recommending a command-wide policy be established. He noted, however, the Geneva Conventions did apply to Iraq.” However, the Schlesinger Report fails to investigate how and why LG

Sanchez would engage in writing rules of interrogation that are “unauthorized” in the sense that he was applying policies that circumvented the Geneva Conventions to Iraq

(“techniques circulated”), where the Geneva Conventions apply, but also circumventing the 1992 edition of the Army Field Manual. This move does not seem “rational” from the rational-legal perspective, as it is understood in the West, e.g., it is contradictory, or

“rational” and “irrational” at the same time. Again, this leads to chaos and not a rational and orderly outline of detainee interrogation and treatment protocol. The reality of the situation regarding interrogation tactics and techniques is that the concepts used to discuss these tactics themselves implode in Baudrillard’s sense with regard to meaning, such that the concepts of torture, interrogation, and abuse become unintelligible. In this way, the Americans were paying lip service to the enlightenment project’s goals of rationality and order, and especially given that these concepts became themselves inarticulate and incomprehensible.

Nevertheless, power as depicted at Abu Ghraib was a spectacle aimed at

maintaining prisoner compliance. However, the real postmodern spectacle is that the

power over the soul degenerated into abuse of the body and soul, and was documented

for the entire world to see. It is therefore technology itself that allowed us a new,

compelling, and undeniable way of seeing the hidden reality of Abu Ghraib.

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There seem to be at least three separate Western discourses in play. The first is the American discourse of conquering another nation for the sake of liberation and democracy. The second seems to be the discourse of being above the law; the rest of the world must follow the Geneva conventions, but the US chooses when and if the Geneva conventions apply at Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and in Iraq (Mestrovic 2005). The third discourse seems similar to Baudrillard’s notion of seduction (which represents mastery over the symbolic universe) (Baudrillard [1979]1990), and involves a subversion of the first by the second, namely a pretense of bringing liberation and democracy while secretly contradicting these very principles through abuse. For Baudrillard, seduction is associated with the “feminine” and the ability of the “feminine” to rule by mastery over the symbolic universe (and “the code”) versus by “masculine” power.

However, although at first glance the third discourse seems similar to

Baudrillard’s notion of seduction, Baudrillard himself links his notion of seduction to his overall discussion of “the code” that organizes the economy of signs and symbols in society. In the case of the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, the “code” becomes a false

reality that is not merely a simulacrum that has been severed from reality, but a seduction

of reality itself—or at least reality’s appearance. Abu Ghraib was not a hyperreality of

appearances as Baudrillard’s seduction might suggest (Baudrillard [1979]1990). Instead, real actual documented empirically verifiable abuse occurred at Abu Ghraib under the guise of American simulacra regarding democracy and liberation. Neither Foucault’s nor

Baudrillard’s theories capture the complexity of the situation at Abu Ghraib and its relationship to the larger American culture.

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The American public is complicit in this subversion of its own enlightenment ideals by rationalizing the abuse in various ways. For example, Muslims were depicted in our culture and some media as “terrorists’ who deserve this kind of treatment because of the events of September 11th. (I remember viewing President Bush’s announcements

after the events of September 11th, and especially given the heightened targeting of

perceived Muslims for hate-crimes, that American’s should not view all Muslims as

terrorists, and that only a few Muslims used religion as a base for terrorism.) Further evidence for the association of Muslims with “terrorist” can be found in Akbar Ahmed’s book Islam Under Siege, where Ahmed begins by stating “Around the world, Muslims minorities are often concerned with whether they will be perceived as terrorists.”

Additionally, once this mindset exists towards Muslims, it becomes possible to objectify them as things rather than as persons, and this was evident in the homoerotic and gendered abuses that prisoners faced at Abu Ghraib. For Baudrillard, this is must exit

logic—“The have-nots will be condemned to oblivion, to abandonment, to disappearance pure and simple” (Baudrillard 1988, p.111).

Further evidence of the rationalization of abuse can be found in the current

statements made by Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the necessity of restrictive

rules regarding the treatment of detainees under circumstances where detainees might

have pertinent information (Priest and Wright, 2005). In 2001, Vice-President Dick

Cheney, in an interview on “Meet the Press,” said that the government might have to go

to “the dark side” in handling terrorist suspects, adding, “It’s going to be vital for us to

use any means at our disposal.” Similar to Baudrillard’s notion of must exit logic, we seemingly have “must torture logic”; however, our torture logic goes beyond

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Baudrillard’s theory of exclusion in that we now must punitively and actively torture anyone we suspect has information and use any means are permissible. We are the gardeners Bauman (1992) critiques and we are clearing the weeds in an attempt to fashion and remake an environment that conforms to our notions of reason, and our will must be represented, as we are the world’s police.

But really through this spectacle, no voice has been given to the prisoners themselves even if some of the people in Abu Ghraib have indeed been given faces, albeit that they are not given their real names. One of the most fascinating aspects of this situation at Abu Ghraib that came out in the trials is that the prisoners were given

American nicknames such as Gus, Gilligan, Shitboy, Bigbird, the Claw, and so on. These nick names can be understood in terms of American pop-culture television shows such as

Gilligan’s island, Sesame Street, etc. This “Disnification” (Mestrovic 2005) of the prisoners is in itself a form of dehumanization and abuse, and can be equated with the objectification of women in larger American society. The US government reports stated that the dehumanization at Abu Ghraib set the stage for the physical and sexual abuse that followed, and was based on this objectification of detainees. Despite all of this we are not forced to recognize that the Iraqis are people too. These pictures have become icons that blend into the violence and gratuitous sexuality in American culture, cinema, and pornography.

Reflecting on American culture, it is not surprising that there is a parallel between the objectification of women and crimes of power committed against them, and the objectification of prisoners and the associated sexualized and gendered abuses they endured. The point here is that objectification is a form of dehumanization, and at Abu

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Ghraib the result of these acts was the vanishing of prisoner identity and the reconceptualization of identity in a sub-human and bestial manner. As a matter of fact, examples of treating prisoners as on-par with animals have been provided above.

If Foucault is correct about his notion of punishment of the soul, then the irony of the situation at Abu Ghraib is that punishment of the soul occurred through the taking of the pictures, which is in itself a violation of the Geneva Conventions. These pictures highlighted the homoerotic nature of the punishment, as well as the compulsory and common nudity. The homoerotic punishment evidenced in the iconic photographs of abuse is a cultural violation of Iraqi masculinity, and places the detainees in a subordinate category of both vulnerable “female” and unmasculine “homosexual.” In a word, the punishment of the soul has taken the form of humiliation. It is important to understand that contrary to Foucault and Baudrillard, humiliation is not just a means of control, although it can be depicted in this way. Rather, humiliation is in itself not only a violation of the Geneva Conventions but also a form of psychological abuse and objectification. In reality, this kind of deep shame is itself savage and is not rational detainee treatment. It is on par with the medieval physical forms of torture that Foucault writes about in Discipline and Punishment ([1977]1995).

Another contradiction in the enlightenment project is that one would expect the

“interrogation” to occur in designated interrogation rooms under organized procedures set forth by US army field manuals. Instead, as documented by the US government reports,

The Human Rights Watch, as well as courtroom testimony, the interrogations, which turned into abuse, occurred in disorganized and unauthorized locals such as showers, cars

79 and trucks, aluminum storage containers, hallways, and other places that were

“unofficial.”

What is interesting is that the panopticon cannot see into these spaces, making these spaces themselves what Foucault referred to as the “control room” (Foucault

[1977]1995). In a sense, the abuse is occurring outside the purview of the panopticon, as the abuse was hidden and not in full view of the panopticon. One of the most common statements during testimony at the trials made by soldiers in response to participating in abuse was a secret code: “You didn’t see shit!” This can be compared to situations of child and spouse abuse, which take place in the private sphere, outside of the view of everyone else and away from the gaze of the public sphere. As stated in numerous testimonies during both the Harman and England trials, “You didn’t see shit!” was the mantra associated with covering the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse by those who participated in the abuse itself.

Photos are the panopticon, since they show the abuse to the whole public consciousness. This allows the public to visit Abu Ghraib. Too much focus on the photos negates the fact that the abuse is far-reaching and widespread. Additionally, sometimes the photos themselves were destroyed, a fact that came out at the Ft. Hood trial of Sabrina Harman in Megan Ambuhl’s testimony, when she stated that she was personally ordered to remove all traces of the photos from the computer hard drive located in Tier 1A, at the Abu Ghraib prison. In their landmark lawsuits, the ACLU is still negotiating with the government in the name of freedom of information for full release of all of the photos, as the public has not been privy to the many additional photographs of abuse. In a word, the photos themselves become a focus of masculinist

80 power and control in that they construct and tell the “truth” of Abu Ghraib to the world.

This becomes a scapegoat for reasons of insurgency and anti-American targeting, and also a rationalization for keeping the photos secret from the public eye. In the closing arguments of the Lynndie England case, the prosecution made the argument that seven soldiers (the “rotten apples”), and England especially, were to blame for the insurgencies and anti-American targeting. In the Enlightenment society, the photos would be seen as a whistle blowing tactic, yet this meaning becomes subverted as the blame for targeting is shifted onto the lowest ranking of military soldiers. Nonetheless, in her trial, England was cited as the cause for blame for future deaths to American soldiers.

There are other forms of torturing the soul, as well as the body, yet Foucault seems to operate under an untenable principle that the body and soul are radically divided. However, psychological research has demonstrated that mental pain and cruelty has an immediate and long lasting effect on the body through stress, which in itself leads to physical symptoms. Reconceptualized in this way, other forms of abuse at Abu Ghraib can be seen: torture of the body and soul simultaneously; the desecration of the Koran; exploiting Iraqi fear of dogs as a means of torture and control; contaminating Islamic religious prayer sessions with the presence of dogs; rape, which inherently involves torture to the psyche and body simultaneously; religion used to torture the soul through anti-religious sentiment and actions. An additional abuse includes the hooding of detainees as an example of dehumanization, objectification, and psychological torture in that the detainees hear noise and experience physical blows, yet are fully unaware of what is going on except through sound, and therefore cannot anticipate or predict action.

This is torture because it is mental abuse and capriciousness for the victim.

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Figure 6, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Detainee Mental Abuse” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

Additional torture of the mind is evident in the holding of women and children

prisoners without charge and without hopes of being freed from Abu Ghraib. Feminists

have applied Foucault’s identification of the body as the principal target of power to

analyze contemporary forms of social control over both women's bodies and minds, where femininity is policed in terms of certain juridical laws of culturally constructed

gender (Bartky 1988, Bordo 1988, Sawicki 1994). In this case of women and children

prisoners, the emphasis on practices through which power relations are reproduced

converges with the feminist project of analyzing the politics of personal relations and

altering gendered power relations. In this specific example, women prisoners do not have

power over their bodies in that they are imprisoned, such as the argument goes with

regards to women and their experiences in the institutions of marriage, motherhood and

82 compulsory heterosexuality. Hence, at Abu Ghraib, women do not have any power over their bodies or minds as prisoners, and thus women's relationships to their bodies and minds are constrained by their status at Abu Ghraib as pawns and as supposedly

“protected” prisoners.

Furthermore, and I think Baudrillard would agree, a simulacra of torture took place at Abu Ghraib when mock torture sessions were constructed, where both shock wires were placed on detainees as well as hoods. This is a simulation of torture because no shock was delivered and only the situation was reconstructed to give the effect of the abuse. Interestingly, this was exactly the kind of abuse that Saddam Hussein was believed culpable of. The picture below details this abuse, and captures the notion that this is torture of the soul through the mock torture of the body.

Figure 7, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Simulacra of Abuse” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

Lastly, in one situation, a detainee’s body was marked with the misspelled word

“rapeist” on his arm and as a sign of his crime. What is now known because of sworn

testimony in the court cases concerning the detainee abuse is that the detainee actually did not commit the crime of rape. In this instance, the detainee had to experience

83 humiliation and a sense of grave injustice that was inflicted on both his body and soul, the word rapist was physically written on the body with a marker and the detainee was

subsequently beaten as a result of this label. What is more, Harman, a female American

soldier wrote the word on the detainee’s leg, and I argue that this labeling of a male as a

“rapist” speaks to Harman’s cultural socialization, where in America men are responsible primarily for the violent crime of rape against women.

Figure 8, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Rapeist” (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444)

3.4 Durkheim

For Durkheim, the key points regarding crime and punishment are that

punishment reestablishes the social order, restores the social order that the crime violated,

and is part of society’s self-correcting mechanism. For Durkheim, crime offends the

collective conscious, meaning that when the social collectivity reacts punitively to an act,

the said act becomes a crime. Says Durkheim, “In other words, we must not say that an

action shocks the common conscience because it is criminal, but rather that it is criminal

because it shocks the common conscience. We do not reprove it because it is a crime, but

it is a crime because we reprove it” ([1893] 1933, p. 80). However, the US government

84 reports show that the social system at Abu Ghraib was indeed not self-correcting. The abuse and “punishment” of the detainees were crimes in themselves that further disrupted the social order. Moreover, considering the trials themselves, all the responsibility was shifted onto a few “rotten apples,” which did not restore a sense of law and order in the

US Army or in the American collective consciousness. Again, culpability was pushed onto a “few rotten apples” and thus the prison did not function as an instrument for restoring social equilibrium.

Additionally, according to Durkheim, punishment can or cannot be cruel and is aimed at reestablishing the social order. This punishing gives order to the collective conscious, and societies become more humane as they progress from a punitive law society to a restitutive law society-- so now we don't chop heads on blocks or have public hangings, but instead use homoerotic poses and acts as the metaphysical guillotine of punishment. Many see the war itself as punishment for the September 11th bombing of the trade centers, as the image of the “terrorist” is labeled and congealed for the

American public as the enemy by President Bush and the media. The message is this:

Iraqis are terrorists with weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi people are "insurgents" that are in the way of inevitable democratic progress. In this way, it seems that David

Riesman ([1961]2000) might label the American social character as that of an other directed culture, one that was attacked and shamed on September 11th, and who

desperately is trying to reestablish the role of world domination so that our image of the

“nation-self” is a positive and strong collective image. This image also gives us power

over the rest of the world in that we are the symbolic bully, who not only does not play

well with others, but also acts out when excited. Have we become molded of the same

85 symbolic material that figures such as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are fashioned?

Instead of punishing Saddam physically (body) we put him on display in his underwear in the media, a clear narcissistic slashing of the soul. Putting Saddam on display in the world media and as one of our prisoners, as well as showing his sons dead on worldwide television, are all crimes that violate the Geneva conventions. None of

these actions are in line with Durkheim’s theory, which holds that punishment is

supposed to restore social order. Although U.S. punishment of Muslim nations did

temporarily reinforce national solidarity in the U.S. (given the huge popular support for

the war at its onset) as a strong nation coming together to defend freedom and

democracy, it also disrupted solidarity in Muslim nations. This disruption of the Muslim

social order can be read as a form of punishment in itself. For example, the humiliating

punishment of Saddam only serves to further humiliate people in Muslim nations and

promotes more insurgency and chaos (Ahmed 2003). These leaders, according to Akbar

Ahmed (2003) in his book Islam Under Siege, are heroes to Muslim nations, and we

depict them in real live simulacra of MTV’s Real Life. Thus, the war and disruption of

social cohesion in the Muslim nations can be viewed as punishment of the body and soul

of the Muslim “nation-self.” Additionally, at this time, support for the war has lowered

and thus the perceived benefit of national social solidarity in terms of rallying around the punishment of Muslims is itself fleeting. Instead, one could argue that solidarity is beginning to be about supporting the end of the American occupation of Iraq, and this interpretation functions in understanding recent Muslim solidarity as well.

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The war itself can also be understood as punishment for offending the sovereign

(GW Bush and family), as a private grudge, or even an easy excuse for targets to blame for the devastation on September 11th. For on the world’s stage, our image was tarnished;

yet, we are the world's policemen, not because we are good police (obviously given our

current American prison problems coupled with the problems we have at prisons in Iraq,

Guantanamo, and Afghanistan), but because we portray ourselves as the world's police,

looking to bring democracy, security, and flowers. Instead, we give the illusion of order and function under a simulacrum of rationality. However, all the while, Foucault’s medieval spirit of punishment has just mutated into a new form of the same.

3.5 Moving beyond Foucault’s Continuum of Punishment and Cruelty

Foucault argues that physical cruelty as a form of punishment has been replaced with notions of more humane punishment of the mind and soul in modern nations that operate under the principles of the Enlightenment project (Foucault [1977]1995).

Regarding Abu Ghraib, this does not seem to be the case. Instead, the Enlightenment project, as well as postmodern notions of simulacra, are themselves subverted by cruelty that involves both the body and the soul.

Subversion is used through the holding of “ghost detainees,” which are people who are held without being formally charged. This can be seen as an example of what

Foucault calls the sovereign's right to make charges against a person that they do not know about (Foucault [1977]1995). Even the notion of “rights” are themselves an enlightenment ideal that is based on a narrative, which is itself a simulacra.

Consider the recent story in Time magazine that reports on the murder of a ghost detainee by CIA agents at Abu Ghraib after being captured by Navy Seals November 4,

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2003. Printed plainly in Time magazine was the following: “The death of secret detainee

Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy” (Zagorin

2005). It was stated in The New Yorker that a forensic pathologist testified that al-

Jamadi died from asphyxiation while being shackled in a crucifixion-like pose (Mayer

2005). Indeed, no charges have yet to be leveled at the CIA, and the agent who specifically was mentioned, Mark Swanner, continues to work for the CIA. Likewise, in

The New Yorker, reports of up to four more detainee deaths at the hands of the CIA were acknowledged, yet “US government's policies on interrogating terrorist suspects may

preclude the prosecution of CIA agents who commit abuses or even kill detainees”

(Mayer 2005). Where are the rights of these detainees? Are they being considered?

It is not surprising then to know that at the Sabrina Harman trial, one photograph

in particular was never shown—the one with her smiling and giving the thumbs-up over a

body packed in ice, the body of Manadel al-Jamadi. If this photograph were shown in

court and at the trials, it can be imagined that more questions might be asked about who

that was Sabrina was smiling over, and more importantly, how did that detainee die?

What is known about the photograph, however, is that Harman was ordered to smile and

to pose in the picture by Graner, a male guard at Abu Ghraib. In this way, power over the

body was gendered for Harman in that she was forced by a male superior to participate in

the photo of al-Jamadi. Power over al-Jamadi’s body and soul was evidenced in his death

at the hands of the CIA.

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Figure 9, Abu Ghraib Prison, “Sabrina Harman Smiling Over the Body of Manadel al- Jamadi” (Tentatively identified as of May 20, 2004) http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444

Subversion is also used in this war when one considers current reports of “black sites,” or secret prisons run by the CIA, reportedly in locations of the former Soviet

Block Countries. This is yet another example of how the CIA operates outside of the law, thereby making the American notion of the rule of law a simulacra itself

(Baudrillard [1981]1994). In many ways when Baudrillard claims that “the Gulf War did not take place” and that there has been a “perfect crime,” he may now possibly be found heralding that “American law does not exist” either, and that we have now entered into the “spirit of terrorism” (Baudrillard [2002]2003; Baudrillard [1995]2002; Baudrillard

[1991]1995).

For Foucault, confession (a form of subversion) is integral for punishment

(Foucault [1977]1995), and perhaps this is why it was so important for the MI's to get the

89 confession out of detainees. After all, we are seemingly looking for the truth through the punishment and control of detainees. However, the American MI’s used what Foucault would term medieval methods of torture such as physical blows and physical suffering to extract these confessions, while simultaneously professing adherence to enlightenment narratives.

The trials themselves might be considered, under the common sense definition of a “trial,” to be aimed at finding the truth, much like a confession of sorts. However, after attending two separate trials dealing with detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, it became clear to me that these trials were really games of subversive strategy with revolving fictions, images, and chances for one-upmanship. If Foucault is right, and punishment is now aimed at just punishing the soul, then the “bad-apples” would not be shackled in body chains that connected at the ankles, wrists, and waist, and also surrounded by giant guards and journalists taking photos as they left the courtroom after the verdict. This kind of punishment is aimed at both the control of the body and the soul. Lynndie

England and Sabrina Harman were not just handcuffed on a guarded military base, but their hands were shackled to their legs on a guarded military base— the largest Army base in the nation, and in front of the entire world view of the media who waited, leisurely camped, and strategically placed to get the best photos of this humiliating

spectacle. I argue elsewhere that this spectacle was really about how female soldiers,

England and Harman, offended the masculinist code of the military by virtue of being

female in the masculinist military itself.

Punishment is thus an interesting concept coupled with gender and power, and

can even help explain why relationships existed between the detainees and the guards of

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Abu Ghraib prison. From the point of view of the detainees, there was the Stockholm

Syndrome of the prisoners— laughing, joking, or complying with their abusers. This was

documented in court during the Harman trial when Sabrina herself stated that Gilligan,

the man in the hood with the electrodes attached to his fingers, agreed to be hooded

during the mock execution photographs. Sabrina said he was their friend or their

“trustee.” However, the Stockholm syndrome also applies to some of the abusers themselves, as a large number of soldiers (both male and female) with whom I spoke

openly with disclosed that they were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

(PTSD) from the abuse they suffered and witnessed in Iraq and at Abu Ghraib. Thus, in a

sense both the American soldiers and the detainees became victims of the very

punishment that they exacted.

3.6 The “Rationalization” of Rationality

Within this section, I demonstrate that rationality associated with modernity has a

conceptual link to masculine and patriarchal systems, and thus use a gender analysis to

understand “rationality” and “chaos” at Abu Ghraib.

Throughout this analysis, rationality itself has not been used to correct the social

order; rationality has not been used to restore the legitimacy of the Geneva Conventions

or the Army’s Field Manual 34-52; instead, rationality has been used to rationalize torture

instead of stopping it. This can be understood as a mutation of the masculinist symbolic

“code” in that it is neither rational nor logical. At the Abu Ghraib prison, rationality

applied should have resulted in order, control, and a prison of safety. Instead, what both

the detainees and military personnel of Tier-1A and Tier 1-B at Abu Ghraib prison

encountered and experienced was a prison within a prison. “Rationalization” of supposed

91 rationality itself occurred throughout the Abu Ghraib prison, within government reports, inside of the courtroom itself, and throughout the sworn testimony within the courtroom.

At the Abu Ghraib prison, there was the rationalization that abuse of detainees only happened specifically in Tier-1A and only at Abu Ghraib. However, in reality, abuse was happening all over the compound of Abu Ghraib (for example, when detainees were being taken out of transport trucks, when detainees were moved or searched, etc.), and abuse is still happening all over Iraq according to Captain Ian Fishback’s account in the Human Rights Watch Report (2005). This is especially important to point out

because abuse was occurring before the soldiers from the 325MI and 800MP brigades

(the “rotten apples”) arrived in August of 2003 at Tier-1A of Abu Ghraib. More

importantly the abuse is still continuing after the abuse was reported in January 2004, and

well into the year 2005. The abuse has been documented to extend well beyond the

boundaries of the Abu Ghraib prison, and has been documented at FOB Mercury, FOB

Tiger, and other bases in Iraq, not to mention at US military bases in both Afghanistan

and at Guantanamo Bay. But, what remains important is that much of this abuse was

gendered in that it aimed at garnering power through gender humiliation and homoerotic

torture over both the body and soul.

Within US government reports, the reports themselves do admit that the chain of

command was responsible for the abuse and chaos at Abu Ghraib, but rationalized that

culpability fell entirely on the lower ranking soldiers, two of which were the only women

at the hard site of Abu Ghraib, and who were shown not to have participated in abuse. In

this way, in other sections, I argue gender was used to punish females within the

masculine-based U.S. military.

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Within the courtroom, the rationalization was that these were just a “few rotten apples” doing the abuse, when even experts such as Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic testified that there was a larger “poisoned environment,” and using similar terminology as within the government reports themselves, as evidenced by the expansiveness of the abuse.

Additionally, the judge had complete control of what would be admitted for evidence into the trials, thereby performing the iconic role of masculine control. Hence, the wider

reasonable connection between abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan

was never allowed to be heard within the courtroom. Says Dr. Stjepan G. Mestrovic,

right before the judge forcibly cleared the courtroom, sent Mestrovic, the expert witness out of the courtroom, and sent the panel immediately back into deliberation, “connect the

dots of the migration of abuse, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iraq.” Even

Captain Fishback’s report on the Human Rights Watch Report webpage was denied entry

into the trial as evidence because of its supposed yet seemingly incorrect “non-relevance” to the abuse cases being tried at Ft. Hood. Instead, the rationalizing in the courtroom was that this abuse was caused by a few “rotten apples,” and seemingly continues in part, it was argued at the courts-martial, because of their doing.

Considering the testimony heard at the trial of Lynndie England, not one officer was allowed to testify as a means to rationalize that the chain of command could not have known of the abuse. In this way, these officers could not thusly be held liable or culpable for the abuse itself. The government reports demonstrated clearly and rationally that the officers in charge of Abu Ghraib knew or should have known under US Army protocol that the abuse was occurring. Hence, the testimony itself was skewed. The officers

93 allowed to testify were subpoenaed and testified in exchange for not being prosecuted.

Thus, a “deal” was made, and thereby a rationalization for their “acquittal” occurred.

Is through the rationalizations in each of these aspects—the prison, the government reports, the courtroom, and the testimony—that reason itself was presented as a simulacrum. “Reason” itself was not killed, as Baudrillard would have us believe

([1995]2002) , but an economy of rationalization has sprung up to replace it, where at one time rationality and enlightenment ideals attempted to flourish.

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4. ABU GHRAIB, PARSONIAN GENDER ROLES, AND COURTS-MARTIAL

EXPERIENCES

Reflecting on my experiences (and many pages of notes!) of the courts-martial of

Sabrina Harman and Lynndie England, as well as the many sworn statements and testimony, I argue that Parsons’ notion of instrumental and expressive gender roles describe the different role themes that developed at these trials (in session and in private meetings with the defense council). I analyze sworn statements and testimony, and I apply Parsons’ notion of gender roles to the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and the now infamous photographs depicting the conditions and abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Throughout this discussion, I show that the Parsonian distinction between instrumental and expressive roles served a multitude of functions simultaneously, and especially given the masculinist code of the military. However, I move beyond Parsons, and argue that given the complex social situations at Abu Ghraib, Parsons’ notions of “instrumental” and “expressive” are limited with regard to their explanatory power in the following situations: when expressive means were linked to instrumental ends; expressiveness towards superiors as a means to an ends; and expressive fear in male soldiers. In general,

Parsons accounts for the rigid stereotypes of the military with regard to male and female roles; however, Parsons does not account for the fact that males can be expressive, females can be instrumental, and above all, that expressive functions can themselves be

“instrumental” in terms of power relationships1. Moreover, the “instrumental” goals- means relationships established at Abu Ghraib was non-functional, and ironically, resulted in chaos, not the desired, instrumental goals. There were complex issues going

1 For a non-critical application of Parsonian’s gender categories applied to the Courts-Martial of Sabrina Harman, see Mestrovic and Caldwell 2006.

95 on at Abu Ghraib and in the courts-martial, and a sophisticated application of Parsons’ initial typology leads to new concepts such as expressive torture, expressive power, instrumental torture, and instrumental chaos.

4.1 Instrumental and Expressive

Formulated in full by the late 1960’s, Parsons used the sexual division of labor in the family as the basis for his conceptions of male and female “sex roles,” or a specific division of roles based on the biological distinctions of sex (Parsons [1937]1949; Parsons

1951; Parsons 1951; Parsons and Bales 1955). (This theory can be thought of as the stereotypical gender roles of the “Leave it to Beaver” era.) For Parsons, the feminine role was the “expressive” role associated with the mothering duties of taking care of children and providing emotional support, which was functional in nature for both the family and for social solidarity. The feminine role was expressive action oriented towards internal integration, or the amalgamation of the group, as well as assimilation and incorporation.

This means that Parsons associated the expressive role with group functioning that had a focus on concern with the welfare of others. The masculine role was, according to

Parsons, the “instrumental” role, or those tasks associated with being a wage earner or other goal-oriented and presumably “rational” tasks. Additionally, Parsons characterized the masculine role as oriented towards instrumental action, aimed at the external environment such as the work place or public and political sphere of society. The masculine role identifies the male as an agent who thinks in terms of rationally-linked goals and means, and whose behavior is esteemed in terms of competence and independence (Parsons and Bales 1955 ).

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Parsons’ description of gender roles is based on his perception that biological distinctions of sex inform gender behavior, and specifically inform the ways that gender roles become so conceived. In Parsons’ structural-functional account, gender associated with sex categories serves as a means for organizing social life. These distinct sex roles,

Parsons explains, are transmitted through socialization, and became associated with occupational and family roles.

Some argue that Parsons’ account of gender reifies gender stereotypes and ignores power relations within families, as women’s work in the home is not valued as much as man’s work outside of the home, as women’s domestic labor is not paid labor.

Additionally, other concerns are that Parsons seems to imply an inequality in sex roles that is left unquestioned in terms of power, and this too could be another reason women’s work is not valued similarly to men’s work in our culture. As a matter of fact, women working in the public sphere, and outside of the home, earn less than their male counterparts.

Feminists and other gender theorists explicitly question the association of sex and gender categories in terms of their relationship as causal explanations between categories, and argue that Parsons does not critically evaluate the divisions of these roles in terms of gender stereotypes. Although the Parsonian perspective seems helpful in that it attempts to give an account of how gender integrates society both structurally and descriptively in

terms of beliefs associated with expectations, this perspective is problematic in that it

holds a view of gender that is not fluid and assumes similar social conditions for all

women as well as men. Clearly, there will be women who are primarily “instrumental”

in their orientation and men who are primarily “expressive,” such as creative artists.

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Additionally, Parsons’ analysis ignores the rigid constructions of gender roles as well as the strains and social costs of these characterizations. Finally, for feminist theorists,

Parsons theorizing is problematic in that his notion of gender “complementarity” amounts to little more than female subordination to male domination.

Nonetheless, Parsons does give us a theoretical way to understand the social

expectations of gender roles that women and men occupy within culture—particularly

U.S. military culture--or at the minimum how gender is classified within American

culture. This cultural ideology of gender behavior becomes so ingrained that men and

women are described as behaving differently because of their compliance with distinct

gender role expectations. This kind of cultural ideology of gender behavior is shown, for

example, in popular cultural psychology books such as Men are From Mars, Women are

From Venus. Hence, cultural ideology functions as a powerful viewpoint in that it

organizes society, and in this case, attitudes around gender. We can see examples of this

in advertising messages, in the attitudes and beliefs of laypersons within our cultures

regarding gender, in fashion prescriptions, in cultural analyses of etiquette, among other

social phenomena.

Thus, what I am concerned with is identifying the gender role distinctions

between Parsonian instrumental and expressive roles, and the functions that these roles

serve with regard to power in the U.S. military in general, and at Abu Ghraib and Ft.

Hood in particular. I argue that the masculinist code of the military reifies the

stereotypical gender expectations found in larger cultural practices, and thereby also

functions as prescribing appropriate gender expectations and behavior through the

differentiation and distinction between gender roles. In this way, the institution of the

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American military is gendered with regards to gender role expectations and personalities, such that the powerful dogma of masculinity organizes social relations and social interaction.

Again, what is important to remember, is that feminists critique this Parsonian social organization based on the bias of masculinity because it represents the structural brass tacks of patriarchy, and is thus organizing approach to society that does not consider power and subjugation.

Nonetheless, I find Parsons’ distinction useful when discussing the organization

of the military around power, where what is powerful is the ideal of masculinity itself.

The United States military is not a bastion of feminism, where what is most important is that women are equal to their male counterparts. I asked a several male military personnel (a former marine, soldiers at the trials, etc.) if women were given equal

opportunity to men in the military, and many said yes, especially given affirmative

action. However, when I pressed for a listing of some of the work that women could not

be assigned to in the military the evidence mounted. For example, women have been

historically limited with regard to combat roles, are not given military occupational

specialties that are require combat arms, are not placed in either infantry, artillery,

forward observer, machine gunner, mortar man, or sniper roles, and cannot be fighter

pilots. What I realized is that women have not been given the full opportunities that men

are given in the military, and that with opportunity comes the association of value, where

what is valued is Parsons’ notion of masculinity, which functions as the standard of value

itself. This ideal of masculinity thus becomes the powerful perspective for judgments of

value and opportunity within the military.

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4.2 Meeting With the Defense Attorney: September 21, 2005, The Trial of

Lynndie England

The first day that I was on the Army base at Fort Hood, I was involved in a meeting with one of the defense attorneys and expert witnesses. This was basically the meet and greet where my dissertation chair, Dr. S.G. Mestrovic, an expert witness for the defense in Sociology and Psychology, was to discuss strategy with defense attorney

Captain Jonathan Crisp. Dr. Mestrovic and I were new to the town of Killeen, Texas, and

were still getting used to being some of the only civilians on the largest American Army

base in the world.

Captain Crisp’s office was a large room with many desks, with smaller rooms

jutting out from the main one, full of things like coffee machines, copiers, and other

office equipment. It was obvious that others shared this space with Crisp, and he told us

that this was the area that he was given to prepare for the England trial. We all were

talking and getting to know each other, getting comfortable in the surrounding chairs, and

waiting for one of the other expert witnesses to arrive, Dr. Thomas Dennne. After

mentioning that Dr. Mestrovic did not look like a Harvard graduate or a Texas A&M

Sociology Professor given his casual attire (slacks and a blue long sleeved button-up tailored shirt), I wondered just what Crisp had in mind with regard to his anticipated characterization of Mestrovic.

As I sat down in a circle of chairs, I imagined Mestrovic with a copy of Kant’s

Critique of Pure Reason, a smoking and curvy pipe full of vanilla tobacco, a vest and hounds tooth shirt, chinos, tie, and briefcase, stroking his long beard contemplating the

100 meaning of truth. However, Mestrovic looked to me like he always does, clean cut, appropriately dressed for the occasion, a university professor ready to delve into the business at hand— thoughts churning away in his head, solving and answering questions

I believe he poses to himself. It was telling of Crisp’s perceived mental image of

Mestrovic given what he knew of him—that he is a professor, an expert witness, and indeed does have three degrees from Harvard. I wonder what Crisp expected? I understood this conversation as a dance of masculinity between two powerful men depending and working with each other, sizing each other up in order to know what to expect during the trials. This was about trust and fear. I witnessed Crisp sizing

Mestrovic up in his mind; nonetheless, the environment was very comfortable. Details of the trial began to be discussed, including when Mestrovic would be able to analyze psychological reports and interview Lynndie England herself.

Interestingly, as more people began to enter the office, one of the rituals that the men participated in was undressing. Now, I am not talking about undressing down to their skivvies, but I am talking about taking the military marks and insignia off, unmarking the body itself in a powerfully marked military environment. In other words,

Crisp unexpectedly took off his uniform down to his t-shirt, and I wondered at what point he would stop undressing. Mestrovic and I exchanged looks in an attempt to understand this ritual and then it was explained to us. First off, the uniforms themselves were very hot and itchy. It was September in Texas, and it was indeed sweltering outdoors. In addition, meetings had been taking place all day in an attempt to pick a jury—another

“hot spot” situation for sure. In an account that is in line with Veblen’s conspicuous consumption, these undressing male defense attorneys and aides began to describe the

101 difference in the quality of the uniform shirts. Apparently, there were the “good” shirts and the “crap” shirts. This distinction was not based on fabric, as both shirts were made of polyester. But, this distinction had to do with workmanship of materials and how the shirt itself actually laid on the body—how it fit. This was obviously of great importance to the different members of the Army in the room, and I was shown again and again the differences between the shirts themselves. I must admit, however, that even in a roomful of half-dressed men in white undershirts who repeatedly explained the fashion

differences between the qualities of their military uniforms, I cannot tell the difference

between the two uniform options. I just hoped that in the courtroom, the main attorney

for the defense would be wearing the “good” shirt, so as to give the impression and

appearance of goodness and quality to the judge and jury. Mestrovic kept his shirt on for

the duration of the meeting.

One of the expert witnesses entered the defense office area, and introduced

himself to both Mestrovic and I as Dr. Thomas Denne. Denne and I began to make small

talk and decided to go down the hall to get a cold drink from the pay machines while

everyone else in the room was getting situated. I asked him what he did and if he did

research still, and he told me he was a school psychologist in West Virginia, and had

known England since she was very young. He said he even worked with her when she

was a student. Denne and I discussed his research on learning, and I commented on the

many books about learning theory I had, as a graduate assistant to Dr. Mestrovic, checked

out and looked through in preparation for this trial. We spoke of Piaget, Kohlberg, and of

other learning theories. Denne told me that England was oxygen deprived at birth, had

been diagnosed with learning disabilities in kindergarten and that although she made

102 progress in school, she was highly speech impaired as a youth (more so than her condition now, with only the occasional stutter and pause), and even had trouble initially learning to read. I thought this was especially interesting since my mother had recently implemented a program as an administrator in charge of student services for a Houston,

Texas school district that teaches kids to read by actually reading to trained dogs. These dogs became the students’ friends and helped them become comfortable reading in front of an audience. He had heard of these kinds of programs, and my initial (and future) impressions of Thomas Denne were that he was an extremely kind, compassionate, child- learning focused, “parental in nature” expressive individual. Additionally, given all of his training and experience with learning difficulties as a counselor, I was doubly

impressed with his dedication to child learning and instrumental approach that put into

practice learning programs. He was a “good” guy and I immediately felt safe with him.

He was here, not for notoriety, not for fame, not because he was paid, but because he had

a genuine concern and connection to Lynndie England. He was a trained and certified

expert, had personal knowledge of England’s early learning experiences, and was also her

friend in the largest sense of the word. In his role as an expert witness at the trial, he would be fulfilling an instrumental masculine role; yet, given his deep care for England and her situation, he was expressive in nature. In this way, as a male, Denne was both instrumental and expressive.

I felt confident and secure that this witness would be able to tell his story of working with the young England, openly and professionally discussing her limitations, in such a way that would make sense to the jury and provide an explanation of the images containing her smiling within the pictures of abuse. This was one of the big questions of

103 the trial…Why were people smiling in the photographs? Why was England smiling?

The defense offered by Denne was that she was going along with the abuse, and this would be explained in its entirety in the courtroom in terms of her compliant personality.

Could she tell right from wrong? Well, according to Denne, England “goes along”

(expressive) with the behavior of authority figures. (Interestingly, one of the other expert witnesses for the defense, Xavier Amador, also testified to this fact and pointed to

Stanley Milgram’s research on authority figures in his testimony.) England’s “going along with” nature can be understood as expressive, although might have been aimed at perceived needs that she saw as instrumental, and namely that what Graner was doing

was ethically correct and that she should support these actions. It was Graner, after all,

that ordered England to pose and smile in the photographs of abuse.

As we returned to the defense office, Mestrovic motioned to me and gave me my

first assignment. I had to play the instrumental role of copying his curriculum vitae that

was to be provided to the jury so as to legitimize his status of expert witness. Mestrovic

was off to interview England and other witnesses that evening, and I was on my way to

the nearest copy shop. I did secretly look at his “resume” after printing the first copy on

the ten-dollar-rent-by-the-hour-computer, and it was true, he did have three degrees from

Harvard. I must mention that although I was told to simply make copies of the CV for

the jury, not only did I have copies made, but I also had the almost two-inch packet

professionally glue-bound like a book you would buy at Barnes and Noble, complete with

double thick front page and clear book sleeve cover. I am not kidding; the presentation

materials on the outside were as impressive as the qualifications inside. This was, after

all, my mentor, and I was in his professional academic service. I knew that image was

104 important in the courtroom, and I was doing my best to make my mentor shine like the military shoes at Ft. Hood.

I couldn’t have known it then, but the following day when Mestrovic was on the stand and the judge, defense, prosecution, and jury were being handed and reviewing his

CV, they asked why he only had three degrees from Harvard, and not his fourth degree,

the PhD, from there as well? Mestrovic answered, “Because at Harvard they only allow

you to obtain three degrees and then they make you go to another school.” Score!

Legitimacy! I anticipated that the courtroom would be tricky to maneuver, and was

pleased that my years of miserably working in advertising had finally paid off. In trial it is all about image and the manipulation of argument in one’s favor, which was much like advertising sales. Well, we could play that game of legitimacy. In this way I had shown power through being expressive in taking care of making high-quality CV copies.

Even though this was a tiny victory in the courtroom—one specifically focused on the image of an expert witness, and one only I felt—I believed that I had helped in some small way to create the means for Mestrovic’s expert interpretation of the events at Abu

Ghraib to be heard—really heard and considered—by the jury. Maybe if they listened to

Mestrovic they would see that Lynndie England was a scapegoat, a pawn in Charles

Graner’s masochistic plan of detainee control and abuse, and that she did not at all voluntarily, knowingly, and intentionally propose the abuse that she was charged with. In open court, during the pre-hearing of suppressed information regarding the courts- martial, the most she was even associated with (although not by all testimonies) in terms

of detainee abuse was stepping on detainee’s fingers.

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Nonetheless, justifiable evidence in the form of a particularly well-formatted CV provided additional kudos for Dr. Mestrovic and for his testimony to have significant meaning given his credentials—and they did. I realized afterwards that I, too, had fallen into the instrumental-expressive role distinction without being aware of it at the time.

Mestrovic disclosed to me afterwards that he did not even consider photocopying his CV onto high-quality bond paper, but was concerned only with getting a sufficient number of copies for the jurors. On the other hand, due to socialization, I was concerned with the appearance or “expressive” aspects of this task. As a female, then, I played both instrumental and expressive roles at the courts-martial. Additionally, both Denne and I played a key role of “expressive power” in the courtroom with regards to his testimony that was filled with genuine regard and care for England, and my use of image legitimacy regarding Mestrovic’s CV. Additionally, I used expressive means of image linked to the instrumental ends of courtroom legitimacy. Moreover, the male defense attorneys displayed expressiveness concerning their uniforms, yet this expressiveness was also aimed at the legitimacy of image, or the instrumental function of a quality uniform.

4.3 Instrumental Responsibility: September 22, 2005, Courts-Martial of

Lynndie England

It is important to know about the initial trial of Lynndie England that took place earlier in August 2005. In August, Lynndie England pled guilty to prisoner abuse at Abu

Ghraib prison in Iraq. Judge Colonel James Pohl, the same judge who would preside over both of the England trials, evaluated the pre-trial information, and was not convinced that England knew her actions were wrong at the time. In a dramatic move, he declared a mistrial in August, in the midst of ongoing proceedings, due to the fact that her

106 ex-boyfriend and convicted soldier, Charles Graner, testified that England was following his orders. According to the judge, England could not plead guilty and have testimony that she was following unlawful orders at the same time. It was at this first trial that the now infamous images of Lynndie England came into question. Among others of importance was the photo of England holding a leashed detainee who had been dragged out of the cell with a belt around his neck.

Graner testified at England’s second trial as well, this time that the use of the belt to extract prisoners from cells was a legitimate technique for detainee handling. He said that he had looped the leash around the prisoner’s shoulders and body in an attempt to

“coax” him out of a cell, and that it slipped up around his neck. Graner, the reputed ringleader of the abuse, testified at England’s sentencing hearing that pictures he took of

England holding a naked prisoner on a leash at Abu Ghraib were meant to be used as a legitimate training aid for other guards. In this way, this procedure for dealing with prisoners had instrumental importance in that it was a means for action aimed at

controlling detainees in a chaotic environment. Additionally, Graner’s insistence of

photographing the move was instrumental in that it would act as an aid for future

teaching techniques regarding prisoner handling, and so according to Graner was just

documenting his detainee procedure.

What is important, however, is how Graner used England as a witness to his

abuse. Looking at the Abu Ghraib photographs, everyone thinks England was abusing

prisoners, but really Graner was abusing England. Graner said in his testimony that he

asked England to hold the strap while he took photos that he could show to other guards

later to teach them this “legitimate” prisoner-handling technique. In typical expressive

107 fashion, England “went along” with Graner’s request—in order to please him, an instrumental goal. In this way, England can be understood to act expressively towards a superior as a means to an end. Extensive testimony was presented by two expert witnesses, Dr. Denne and Dr. Amador, regarding this interpretation of England’s role in the infamous leash photograph. The gist of this testimony was that the overly-compliant

England was a victim of Graner’s abuse, but not a perpetrator, and not even a co-abuser.

Again, the instrumental end that England was aimed at was compliance with her boyfriend’s request, which she thought was legitimate because she viewed him with

legitimacy, and for no other reason. Thus, England did not question Graner’s order in

terms of legitimacy, and this was her expressiveness evidenced.

Interestingly, in a recent analysis of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, Barbara Ehrenreich

uses this image of England holding the leash around the detainee’s neck to argue against

the stereotypical characterization of women as caregivers instead of as able to perform

aggressive acts (Ehrenreich 2007, 2). However, what Ehrenreich did not realize is the

situation under which the photograph was taken, and thus mistakenly vilified England as

acting aggressively (instrumental) instead of simply going along with Graner’s instructions (expressive). Moreover, Ehrenreich seems to assume, along with most journalists, that the act of holding the leash in order to please her boyfriend is on the same order of aggressive abuse that England’s boyfriend exhibited by punching blindfolded prisoners. Ehrenreich and others jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based upon prejudgments made on the basis of photographs, without considering the social context that was explained by four separate expert witnesses at the trial.

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However, when England pled guilty on the stand, she told the judge she knew that the pictures were being taken purely for the amusement of the guards. England told the court that the physical beatings and sexual humiliation were done for the guards’ entertainment and took responsibility for the smiling, thumbs-up poses she struck for photographs that made her the face of the prisoner abuse scandal. Inside information from the defense attorneys suggests that she made these “admissions” in the hope of getting a lighter sentence by pleading guilty, and also in order to get the trial process

“over with,” because of the immense stress that it was causing to herself, her baby, and her mother. These actions were expressive in nature, yet linked to instrumental ends.

Although England did not abuse the detainee in the photo that shows her with the leash in her hand, and did not instrumentally pile detainees naked or into pyramids, she was pictured alongside these detainees. She appeared to be guilty of these actions, but simply appeared in the photos themselves. England’s testimony proved to be confusing for the

courts because, as Pohl said, “A one-person conspiracy is not possible” and thus the two

statements from Graner and England could not be reconciled—at least not in his

judgment. On the other hand, the defense attorneys were baffled by the judge’s reasons

for declaring a mistrial.

Judge Pohl threw out England’s plea of guilty and declared a mistrial, and instead entered a plea of not guilty for England regarding a charge of conspiring with Private

Charles Graner to maltreat detainees at the Baghdad-area prison. This first trial thus

resulted in the scheduling of a second trial in September 2005 for Lynndie England.

Conspiracy is one of the most serious charges in the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military

Justice) and carries the more severe sentences in contrast to dereliction of duty and

109 maltreatment. Captain Crisp expressed strongly his opinion that the judge declared a mistrial so that England would be charged with conspiracy. Captain Crisp was also frustrated by the fact that “conspiracy” is relatively easy for the government to prove—

any action that involves the actions of two or more persons can be interpreted as a

conspiracy, even if one of the actors did not intend what the other or others in the group

intended—and extremely difficult for the defense to disprove. To put it another way,

“conspiracy” is the penultimate “instrumental” crime, because it colors the commission

of other crimes committed during the “conspiracy” as being performed deliberately in

terms of rationally chosen goals and means.

On the first early September morning of the actual second trial for England, and

the day after jury selection, there was much discussion about whether England

participated in a conspiracy to maltreat detainees. The prosecution argued that she had

stepped on detainee’s fingers and toes and that with these actions, England was to be

understood as culpable to this conspiracy. Specifically, the prosecution argued, England

was guilty of maltreatment of subordinates. This would be considered an instrumental

action since it involved the planning and carrying out of a rational plan of action for

detainee treatment, much like the prosecution’s initial attempt to link England to Graner’s

use of a leash to remove detainees from their cells.

However, as the defense pointed out, England was not bound in any previous

agreements to treat detainees in this manner. For moral responsibility, it was argued by

the defense (and some philosophers would agree), she did not have this previous

agreement for action, also known as “intention” or “motive.” (Other philosophers would

not care what England’s motive was, and would only focus on outcome of action;

110 however, this was not a philosophical discussion.) After a lengthy discussion, Judge Pohl upheld his previous ruling that England had not made an agreement prior to these overt acts, and therefore could not have entered a plea of guilty, although she could still be tried for conspiracy to commit these acts. In this way, England’s “going along” with the

actions of abuse led to her charge of conspiracy, which in this case can be understood as

an expressive crime.

I heard from numerous journalists that they found these lengthy, intricate legal

arguments concerning responsibility and conspiracy as frankly boring and

incomprehensible. As a rule, the journalists did not see England as a “conspirator,” or

truly capable of “instrumental action” in this regard. However, journalists disliked her

intensely—and made no effort to hide this fact—for reasons that appeared to be

“expressive,” namely, they labeled her privately as a “slut,” “bad girl,” “tomboy,” and

other emotionally-based stereotypes.

4.4 Expert Witnesses: Instrumental Help to the Rescue, September 27, 2005,

Courts-Martial of Lynndie England

“Look at this!” he whispered, leaning over the person next to me, directing my

attention to his pants. “My zipper has broken and I cannot close my pants correctly!”

It seemed like a plea for help. Even though this particular expert witness for the

defense had already testified, surely his credibility would be muted if his problem became

exposed in the courtroom during one of the most covered military courts-martial to

date—the trial of Lynndie England at Ft. Hood’s Williams Judicial Center. He continued

looking at me for help and I found myself torn. Do I stay and experience the illusion of

justice in the courtroom before me? Do I jump to action and solve this problem, thereby

111 conspiring with the expert witness to maintain the illusion of credibility surrounding his previous testimony? I knew what I had to do. I had been solving problems all day long, and this was one of the easier ones yet.

Ok, so I am both an expressive caregiver and an important instrumental problem solver—all the while maintaining my female identity. Apparently, I had begun to perform roles, both expressive and instrumental, when I had arrived at Ft. Hood—from copying, giving pep-talks, and helping the defense come up with sound arguments, to bringing breakfast to some of the expert witnesses (ok, it was free at the hotel, but what if they had skipped breakfast?), making sure there were enough cigarettes to go around, and getting drinks for some of the expert witnesses. In fact, the previous day, I had solved an emergency for another male expert witness, as his testimony had been moved up on the docket, and he was in dire need of a suit jacket so as to fit the image of expert witness on the stand. One must look the part, so I borrowed a three-button dark and formal blazer from someone very well known in the media. I thought it had a nice collar-cut and looked very professional. It was, upon inspection later that day, an Armani jacket. I must confess, it did add just the right touch of “professional expert” on the stand!

“All rise!” the bailiff barked as the judge, Colonel James Pohl, entered the courtroom and sat at an elevated position, the highest in the room, and looked down upon the courtroom itself. I quietly left my position on the front row, right behind the defense table where England and her lawyers were seated, and I whispered to a very grateful man,

“I’ll be right back, no problem.”

As I made my way past the other expert witnesses, the reporters and media, and finally past the guard at the courtroom door, I imagined the response from the all-officer

112 jury that a “pantless” expert in the military courtroom would elicit. Would this response be the same one they showed when viewing the pictures of the naked Iraqi detainees in a pyramid? Or perhaps the same response educed when viewing the image of England giving the thumbs-up signal to the camera? Amazement? Distress? Confusion? I wondered which would be more offensive, and again remembered that I was located on a military base, where masculinity itself was on display and in full view. The economy of the phallus was the norm here—an instrumental position of power from which the military derives its own identity. While also wearing the clothing of the feminine expressive, I decided to wear the mask of masculine instrumentality and left the courtroom in search of a solution.

I walked down the hallway full of MP guards and realized that Charles Graner (a witness currently serving 10 years time in Leavenworth Prison) must be in the building and that they were here to guard him, as well as to ensure England’s safety. Down the wooden hallway I walked, noticing on either side the framed pictures of past military successes. I moved towards the glass door of the court building and saw a female soldier wearing all black fatigues, armed with a protruding weapon. Her “phallus” was a gun, what I believed to be the standard military issue M-9 pistol. As I approached her, she

stood her post firmly at the front door.

“Do you by chance have a safety pin or a stapler or something like that?” I asked

the military police guard in an attempt to solve the problem I had left the courtroom to

remedy. I was on my own “mission.”

The guard asked another MP, who was also all decked-out in black fatigues, with

the MP band on her upper arm signifying that she was indeed here to guard the building

113 in typical police fashion, making it secure for the trial, for those at the trial, and also to secure the safety of the defendant. This guard did have a safety pin and she gave it to me.

This example shows a female enacting an expressive role, yet who was also instrumental with regard to security, and is thus an example of expressive power. The guards then resumed their jovial conversation with their fellow military personnel, who were engaged in a card game in a nearby makeshift break room.

As I made my way back through the hallway of military police, I noticed again the plethora of security and wondered why the need for so many guards? After all, this trial was located at Fort Hood, the largest and most secure Army base in America. To drive onto the base, one must obtain an official “letter of invitation” (also called a subpoena in the case of the expert witnesses), pass a previous and lengthy check of credentials in order to secure an on-base pass, and also must show identification (in addition to the aforementioned on-base pass) that must match the armed guards’ list of invited guests at the motor vehicle entry way. Moreover, the compound itself was surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire, which I am sure was guarded by foot soldiers. Throughout the compound, there were parking lots full of tanks and military vehicles. These seemed to be the ones they were going to use in Iraq, as they were all painted tan and brown desert colors of camouflage. Nonetheless, even though I am a feminist and activist, and consider myself a strong woman, I felt overwhelmed and intimidated in this space. Simultaneously, however, I was delighted that I was experiencing a rare opportunity, which consisted of entering an environment that was so foreign to my own previous encounters that I was forced to simply observe these alien surroundings.

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Quietly moving through the door of an in-session courtroom, and down the isle to the third seat on the right of the front row, I silently handed the expert witness the safety pin and he was mutely elated. I had performed an instrumental role that was expressive in nature, and again, contra to Parsons—all the while as a female. The expert witness responded with a huge smile and look of relief. I took my seat and rejoined the courtroom proceedings in the England trial.

4.5 Expressive Harman and Instrumental Crimes, May 16, 2005, ourts-Martial

of Sabrina Harman,

The courtroom itself had all blonde, wooden paneled walls and was divided basically in half with the jury, judge, defendant, and prosecution on one side of the waist level wooden wall, and seating for viewers on the other side, nearest the main entry door of the courtroom. American flags were displayed and most everyone there, aside from the expert witnesses, the media on the last row, and allowed visitors, were wearing military uniforms of different kinds and markings. There was a swinging waist-level door between the front and back division of the court for people to access the front-stage action of the courts-martial. This was the same building, courtroom, and judge as the

England trial.

From my perspective on the front row, the defense was on the right side of the room, nearest the jury, and the prosecution was on the left side, nearest the judge, court reporter and records keeper. The defense consisted of two lawyers, and in this case, for the Harman trial, they were civilian Frank Spinner and Captain Takemura of the military’s trial defense services. The prosecution consisted of Captain Chris Graveline,

Staff Judge Advocate, and Captain Neill, his assistant. The witness stand was to the left

115 of the judge when he was facing the court in his elevated judge-area, and centered in the courtroom from my perspective. Behind the witness stand there was a door that the jury moved through when they were isolated from court proceedings, where they were locked in private jury deliberations. The room was well lit and voices boomed during examinations.

During the courts-martial of Sabrina Harman, there were many sworn affidavits and testimony that she had not committed any detainee abuse—she had not hit anyone, she did not yell at anyone, and she did not engage in any behavior that was sexual or physical abuse in nature. This means that she was not connected in any way through sworn testimony and affidavits with any detainee abuse such as forced masturbation, homoerotic torture, the human pyramid, or the forced nakedness and sexual positions used at Abu Ghraib. Frederick Graner’s testimony was that Harman actually helped prisoners, and as evidence he pointed to an event on October 20, 2003, where Harman

“saved a guy who was in pain and chained to a wall by his wrists.” As a matter of fact, there was deposition testimony from an actual Iraqi prisoner, named Alyasari, who claimed that Harman had done no harm to any detainees. Additional letters of depositions by other Iraqi detainees were also provided. For example, Exhibit I was a letter from a detainee who knew Harman as a guard and stated that Harman was a kind person who “did good things with mutual respect” and who also had a “peaceful personality.” Additionally, this detainee claimed that Harman gave him aid with meals and medications, called the doctor for emergency services, brought clothes for the detainees, and “was a good woman with no cruelty in her.” Says the detainee, “I consider her a sister for her kindness.” Exhibit J, another letter of deposition, stated that Harman

116 was the only good woman at Abu Ghraib, and indeed the only good guard. This detainee also pointed out that when Harman was on guard duty that the detainees could sleep because she provided them with a quiet environment, and fully refused the accusations

that Harman was guilty of the offences that she was being charged. Thus, Harman was described in Parsonian language as adopting the “expressive role” given her following

actions: she made sure detainees had their eyeglasses and medicine, she got some of

them blankets, and she reported some of the abuse she saw, albeit to no avail. However,

it is possible that she was acting instrumentally in that her way of dealing with prisoners

led to prisoner compliance, where expressive means are thusly linked to instrumental ends.

In the opening statements of this trial, Captain Graveline focused on two specific photographed incidents—the infamous naked pyramid that occurred on November 7,

2003 and the incident on October 25, 2003 in which three Iraqi detainees were stripped naked and forced to crawl on their stomachs as “punishment” for raping an Iraqi boy.

Captain Graveline noted that the three detainees actually had neither committed rape nor were terrorists, instead stating that they were ordinary Iraqi thieves. Captain Graveline also established that the detainees involved in the pyramid incident were not terrorists and had no intelligence value to the United States. Hence, from the very beginning of the trial, the prosecution had established the relative innocence of the detainees who were abused by American soldiers for their assumed guilt. Additionally, Captain Graveline established the homophobic and masculine cultural atmosphere at Abu Ghraib, where mostly male soldiers would punish male detainees primarily through the means of cultural exploitation, homoerotic and sexual humiliation, as well as bodily punishment

117 and punishment of the soul—all punishments were made in an attempt to reify the masculine role of power.

Captain Graveline confined Harman’s role in the first incident to writing the word

“rapist” (which she misspelled as “rapeist”) on the legs of one of the detainees. It is

telling that Harman focused on the alleged rape as the means for marking the detainee’s body, where expressiveness means coincide with the instrumental ends—that of writing

on a detainee’s body for identification purposes. Given the chaotic situation of the

incidents of November 7, 2003, where detainees were stripped naked, forced to climb into a pyramid, forced to masturbate, and forced to simulate fellatio— the idea of rape

was brought to the front-stage of the abuse given Harman’s markings. This is not at all surprising given the violence against women that occurs in the United States in terms of rape, and so it was telling that a female American soldier focused on this particularly vicious crime committed against women. What is also telling is that the detainee abuse of November 7, 2003 was ordered and orchestrated by the male soldiers, where the pyramid and nakedness were described as tactics used to control bodies and to provide order of detainees—this can be read as about power. That said, in the courtroom, the use of the human pyramid was specifically described as being used as a means to control prisoners, or to adapt to the specific environment of chaos at Abu Ghraib. In this way, these means for controlling prisoners can be understood in terms of instrumental chaos.

Additionally, writing on detainees was also common for MI, as this was one way that they separated detainees in an attempt to control, making the role of the guards instrumental, and again as within a chaotic environment.

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Regarding the incident of October 25, 2003, Captain Graveline mentioned that it involved eight soldiers and one Iraqi translator, but singled out Harman—who, in fact, left the scene after a few minutes with Meghan Ambuhl to go to use the phones in the internet café at Abu Ghraib (This was in Ambuhl’s testimony regarding the evening of

October 25, 2003.) The lead defense council, Frank Spinner, argued that that the Army took a young woman and forced her to “experience” a failure of leadership. (Note that the very language used by the defense attorney is passive and “expressive”—she was forced to experience, much like she was raped in her forceful experience).

According to Spinner, this “experience” started earlier than the alleged date of the crime, November 7, 2003. Spinner argued that the context for the pyramid incident includes the many officers who failed her because they did not supervise Tier 1-A. These officers include but are not limited to the following: CPT Reese, CPT Brinson, COL

Pappas, LTC Jordan, LTC Phillibaum, and COL Karpinski. The defense argued that the prosecution was shifting all the blame onto a few low-ranking soldiers at Abu Ghraib— soldiers that were not trained for the positions they were put into. In this way, Harman was not trained for what she saw and had to deal with. Spinner told the jury he would make some concessions and he would contest other claims by the government. He conceded that Harman was promoted from E1 to E4 for duties in which she was never trained. But he would contest that Harman entered into conspiracy or agreement with intent. Yes, Spinner claimed, she was in the photo of the naked pyramid; however, she did not enter into an agreement of intent to torture (instrumental). According to Spinner,

Frederick and Graner were the “primary interface with MI,” and were part of ongoing

119 intelligence activities—these would be the instrumental functions of Abu Ghraib. The goal was get intelligence and the means was “use interrogation techniques.”

Captain Reese, the first witness for the defense characterized Harman as an

“average soldier” who, while stationed at Al Hilla (her location prior to the Abu Ghraib prison) was “good with the local kids who looked forward to seeing her.” Captain Reese continued, “She built a great relationship with the local kids which was good for the image of the United Stated government.” Indeed, Harman was even invited into some of the local’s homes for meals and chai tea, and the defense produced large pictures of these meals featuring Harman and Iraqi families eating and drinking together as evidence.

Meghan Ambuhl’s testimony also supported this expressive role characterization of

Harman as good with children and concerned with Iraqi’s welfare. Ambuhl stated under oath that Harman purchased a refrigerator, food and clothing out of her own money for a local family, and that children flocked to her constantly. Her impact was a positive one and she left a great impression on those with whom she came into contact with. Harman actually also received many gifts from Iraqis, while no other soldiers received any.

Furthermore, Ken Davis (the second witness for the defense) stated under oath that he,

Harman, and Graner passed out bibles and candy to Iraqis at least 6-7 times—actions which can be understood as expressive feminine roles associated with Harman as caregiver, gift giver, and friend. First Sergeant Kempenski’s testimony at this trial also supported this image of Harman as having a positive impact on the Iraqi community, where people knew her by name. Kempenski told a story of trucks full of children driving by yelling “Sabrina,” thereby providing evidence of Harman’s favorable impact on soldiers and also Iraqi families, and filling a gap of a country in need of compassion.

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Hence, Harman’s actions as a female soldier were expressive in means, but can be understood as linked to instrumental ends.

Once Harman was reassigned to Abu Ghraib, Captain Reese stated under oath that she had received some training on non-lethal techniques, including cell extraction and riot training, but did not receive training specific to the Geneva Conventions or training to be a prison guard. This training can be considered in terms of Parsonian language as instrumental since it was focused on goals and means. Captain Reese stated that Harman had never trained to work with MI (military intelligence), and because of a shortage of people, those soldiers (such as Graner) who were civilian correctional officers were put in charge of Tier 1A and 1B, the tiers where the photographed abuse took place. These were the individuals who were “in charge” of Harman, who had no training in these areas. Her “work” at Abu Ghraib was basically to be a “gofer”—to get soldiers coffee, sandwiches, and carry out menial tasks with detainees—all “expressive roles” in

Parsonian language. Nonetheless, these tasks were instrumental in their ends.

Interestingly, she wasn’t even given a formal position at Abu Ghraib, and especially not one associated with the instrumental masculine role of MI or MP. What is more,

Harman’s immediate supervisor testified in open court that she was better suited to be a relief worker (expressive) than a soldier in general, and an MP (military police) soldier in particular. (As a side note, Lynndie England’s work at Abu Ghraib was to “process inmates,” another “expressive role” aimed at organization, much like the work of an administrative assistant. These kinds of jobs are called “pink collar” because they are job roles that women usually have. Thus, England’s work was also expressive in that it was aimed at incorporation and the amalgamation of the group.)

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Harman’s crimes consisted of posing in photographs, taking photographs of others committing abuse, and of not reporting abuse or leaving when abuse was committed by others. These are all passive actions or passive aggressive actions at best.

The prosecution argued that even though Harman never participated in any of the naked stacking or homoerotic torture, she should have known that this kind of handling of detainees was wrong, and even without training. Even though (as of October 2002)

Captain Reese stated that there was no written protocol about stress positions, or any written guidance regarding how to treat detainees, the prosecution argued that Harman did receive VPW training in boot camp, or training dealing with prisoners of war. Hence, the prosecution was arguing that Harman was culpable for knowing that the abuse that was taking place was wrong, even though she did not participate.

The Prosecutor, Captain Graveline, argued that Harman’s smile in the photographs implied that she was taking pleasure in “maltreatment” of detainees (this is active). He claimed that her staying during some of the abuse even if she did not commit it was “dereliction of duty” as well as “conspiracy.” This kind of accusation describes

Harman as located in the masculine “instrumental role,” as the actions of “maltreatment,”

“conspiracy,” and “failure to do one’s duty” all assume an active relationship to goals and means that Parsons and society in general ascribe to males. Even the explanation given to her smile in the photographs of abuse was transformed from an “expressive role” (a passive, going along with the abusive situation) into an active, instrumental role aimed at sadistic pleasure. However, there was no testimony at the courts-martial that associated

Harman with abusing detainees, and thus her smile in the photographs can be understood as expressive abuse at best—as “going along” and not stopping abuse.

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What is more, it came out in the Harman courts-martial testimony that in addition to Harman, male soldiers also did not report the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Instead, these male soldiers expressively “went along” with the abuse and, as stated in testimony, this was because they feared their fellow soldiers’ retaliation. In this way, male soldiers

exhibited expressive fear, which is opposite of the stereotype of the American military’s

rigid masculinist code.

During closing arguments, Harman’s charges were gone over and they consisted

of dereliction of duty (she had a duty, knew this duty, and did not follow through with her

duty in that she did not report the abuse she witnessed, did not try to stop the abuse,

participated in photographs of abuse and did not try to stop the photographs, and did not

try to stop the stress-position handcuffing and abuse of detainees), maltreatment of

subordinates (writing rapist on the detainee, photos of the pyramid, use of Gilligan and fear, and her experiences of others abusing detainees), and also conspiracy (an overt act on Harman’s part regarding her “agreement” to commit maltreatment). The prosecution argued that Sabrina had to know that the order given by her superior Romero to “do anything, but don’t kill” was not lawful based on common sense and given her experience and background. In this way the prosecution argued that common sense judges lawfulness. However, the defense argued that to aid and abet in a crime, the criminal must share intent and must make an attempt to aid the persons committing the crime. The prosecution argued that Harman “participated” by virtue of being there when the photographs were taken, by writing rapist on the detainee’s leg, and laughing, joking, and smiling for photographs depicting abuse. In this way, they present Harman as entering into a conspiracy, thereby making her responsible for all conspiracy actions.

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The defense countered whether this was evidence of Harman’s intent or a result of group dynamics. “Shame on the Army,” said defense attorney Spinner in regards to an ill-equipped, ill trained, junior specialist to challenge NCO leadership (Romero) to do the right thing. This is an example of expressiveness towards a superior as a means to an ends, as Harman did not question her superior’s commands, and instead “went along” with them.

Considering the smiles in the photographs of Harman, Spinner argued that coping skills differ between individuals, and that Harman was simply coping in a stressful situation. Mestrovic later testified that Americans always smile for the camera, it is what they do. Additionally, Mestrovic claimed that based upon the results of her psychiatric tests, it was his professional opinion that Harman’s smile was not sadistic, and was instead a smile that should be interpreted as “going along” and as a defense mechanism for her fear—further evidence of expressive torture since Harman did not attempt to stop the abuse, but also did not participate in the actual abuse in the physical sense. Harman was then characterized as being desensitized with regard to deviant behavior because of the chaotic environment of Abu Ghraib, and that nothing had happened thus far when abuse reports were made to those higher up in the chain of command, so why would

Harman think she could make a difference. This goes back to the idea that what is valuable is regarded with interest, and in the military women have historically not been valued in the same way as their male counterparts. So again, Spinner focuses on the failure of leadership at Abu Ghraib as the reason for the abuse and as a means to minimize culpability for Harman.

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The prosecution countered that Harman did have a choice and she could have reported the abuse to many different outlets. The prosecution used as evidence a list of places to report crimes, and argued that sometimes good people do bad things. They further claimed that it was not the position of the prosecution that “Harman is the most evil person ever,” but that Harman did indeed have a choice and that she could have reported abuse.

Interestingly, it was at this time that the judge’s cell phone rang in open court, providing further evidence that this courts-martial was indeed a strange fiction with a seemingly twilight-zone theme of perplexing, outlandish, and curious foci.

4.6 Gilligan and the Pyramid: Instrumental and Expressive Torture

I argue that even the abuse at Abu Ghraib can be understood distinguished into two types, as either instrumental or expressive.

Consider the detainee named “Gilligan.” Defense attorney Frank Spinner, in an attempt to characterize the nature of the relationships that Sabrina Harman had with

Iraqis asked in open-court “Why was Gilligan standing on the box?” Spinner was referring to the detainee who was nicknamed by American guards at Abu Ghraib

“Gilligan,” an instrumental action by the guards aimed at labeling detainees in language

that was culturally familiar. (Interestingly, in the courts-martial Graner was referred to

by the prosecution in a tongue-in–cheek manner as “God” since most of the blame for the

abuse of detainees was deferred to this “ringleader.” But, concerning the naming of

detainees, Graner does function as “God” per say since it was stated in court that he was

the one responsible for nicknaming detainees.) Gilligan was the detainee in the now

infamous Abu Ghraib detainee abuse photographs who had a bag over his head, was

125 standing on a supply box naked, with electrical wires coming from his hands, as if waiting to be electrocuted. Spinner postulated in court that the technique of sleep deprivation was part of the duty of interrogators trying to save lives, he answered.

Graner’s testimony concurred with Spinner’s postulation exactly, and specifically in the

initial trial of Lynndie England. Again, inadvertently, Spinner was framing Harman’s

role in the Gilligan incident as passive, albeit instrumental in consequence.

Spinner then made claims in court that at first glance might sound absolutely

absurd given that we were at a military trial that was looking into abuse of detainees.

Spinner argued that Harman had struck up a “friendship” with Gilligan and that he was a

trustee of sorts who was cooperative, and helped American soldiers clean the prison,

among other things. Ambuhl’s testimony also solidified this fact when she stated under

oath that Harman’s interactions with Gilligan were friendly both ways. Spinner stated in

court that Gilligan and Harman were joking and being silly when he was standing on the

box, and that because of the jovial nature of this “friendship,” there was no way to conclude that this incident constituted maltreatment on Harman’s part. This is a specific example of expressive torture, as no actual physical and means/ends torture was taking

place. Instead, this was a “game” of torture.

Now, it is true that there is something deeply disturbing about referring to a relationship between a soldier and a detainee as a “friendship,” in which the soldier is forcing a frightened, hooded detainee to stand on a box for hours at a time. If Gilligan

really was joking and laughing—he must have been desperate. It can be argued that

Gilligan acquiesced to the humiliating and frightening situation and followed orders

given by the guards in order to possibly resolve tension and conflict, and in possible

126 avoidance of further abuse, thereby demonstrating expressiveness towards superiors as a means to an ends. Then again, it seems that Spinner was touching upon the expressive, feminine role that Harman adopted. Harman could be and apparently really was

“friends” with a detainee that she was “abusing,” meaning that Harman was evidencing both expressive power and expressive torture. This is a real issue that psychologists call

Stockholm Syndrome, in which abusers and the abused do indeed form emotional attachments between each other, and in this case the attachment can be understood as expressive. Additionally, this “friendship” could have been instrumental on Gilligan’s part in order to avoid actual physical torture at the hands of other guards through his expressive behavior of “going along.” Apparently, Gilligan’s expressive behavior was somewhat instrumental in that it garnered him the status of trustee at the prison in Tier 1-

A. Nonetheless, although the photo of the hooded detainee was described in the courtroom as a joke, this specifically is an example of expressive torture.

Further evidence for this “Stockholm Syndrome” characterization of the

“friendships” that Harman made with detainees includes two statements from letters of depositions, exhibit I and J. Exhibit I is a letter from a detainee, where this detainee states that he considered Harman a “sister for her kindness,” and especially after the detainees had been tortured. After these abuses, Harman “took care of the detainees like a sister.” Exhibit J also points to the strange Stockholm-like attachment between Harman and the detainees, where in this statement the detainee claims that Harman made jokes and laughed with the detainees on a regular basis. Additionally, at the Harman courts- martial, Meghan Ambuhl’s testimony pointed to the kind of care that Harman gave Iraqi detainees after being tortured. Ambuhl stated that she and Harman had secretly changed

127 the stress positions that detainees were put in when their limbs turned blue so as to make them more comfortable. Ambuhl pointed to the importance of the secrecy of this action, as Hubbard, a fellow soldier who changed the stress positions of detainees, was taken off of detainee watch once she was found out to have aided in the comfort of detainees. The mere act of being concerned with the comfort of abused detainees shows Harman’s expressiveness, and her changing their position can itself be understood as instrumental to their wellbeing. Again, this is an example of the Stockholm-like relationship that

Harman had with detainees, which illustrates expressive torture.

Further evidence of this Stockholm-like relationship that female guards had with detainees was evident in Sivits’ testimony at the England courts-martial where he stated

that England and Ambuhl “took care of women and children in Tier 1A.” This idea of

“taking care” is extremely maternal in nature and equates women (in this case England)

with caregiver. Some of the “care giving” that these female guards did was to bring

medical supplies such as inhalers to detainees, and also escorted detainees around the

prison. However, this “care giving” role was aimed at taking care of detainees (women

and children) who were in custody of the military, an act specifically in violation of the

Geneva Conventions. So, England’s caregiver role cannot be understood in the free and maternal sense that a mother would care for a child, but instead as expressive abuse or expressive unlawfulness at best.

However, detainee abuse can also be understood as instrumental torture.

Considering the naked human pyramid of November 7, 2003, this tactic was described as an instrumental way to control bodies and to provide order of detainees, and to control prisoners within the chaotic environment of Abu Ghraib. However, nakedness and

128 homoerotic practices offend cultural constructions of Iraqi culture and masculinity, and serve as a means of torture through humiliation. Also, the practice of writing on detainees to identify their crimes can be understood as instrumental in that it served a purpose and was aimed at the goal of identification and order. However, nakedness itself was a common way to humiliate the detainees through devaluation, which can be interpreted as yet an additional way of torturing instrumentally.

Reflecting back upon the England trial and the photograph of her with the leash around a detainees neck, I argue this too can be understood as instrumental torture given

Graner’s reasoning behind the photograph itself. Graner claimed that he asked England to hold the “leash” while he took a picture of the cell removal tactic in order to record a tactic for detainee cell removal. However, in his attempt to demonstrate what he thought was a “rational tactic,” his actions are documented by the photograph showing a detainee being dragged out of a cell like an animal—further evidence of instrumental torture. The act of dragging and the Graner’s reasoning behind the actual act of taking the photograph were aimed at an instrumental goal, yet the torture itself was humiliating and degrading.

What is interesting when considering “instrumental” torture is that this torture was ordered and orchestrated by male soldiers in an attempt to reify the masculine role of power. The pyramid, writing on bodies, nakedness, and the leash—all of these abuses can be understood as means to create the position of power over detainees. In the one case where a female (Harman) wrote on a male, it was the word “rapist,” which in our culture denotes the perpetration of male violence against women. This can be understood as a cultural message or symbolic, where war itself can be understood as an extension of

129 rape—a theme that an American woman can easily identify with given the nature of the crime against women.

However, feminist writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich argues that the certain naive view of feminism, where women are depicted as caregivers and men as associated with cruelty and violence, has been challenged with the role that women have played regarding abuse at Abu Ghraib prison (Ehrenreich 2007, 4). I agree that this naïve view that characterizes women as good and men as evil is shallow and needs revision, especially in feminist theory. But, I might remind Ehrenreich that what we see in photographs is not always the entire reality. Images have a context, and much like it is important to understand the context women face when formulating feminisms and activist agendas, it is important to understand the context of a photo to really know the truth of the matter. During the courts-martial, what was said in numerous testimony and deposition was that neither England not Harman were the abusers at Abu Ghraib.

(England was said to have stepped on detainee fingers by Graner, but the testimony of

Wisdom seemingly absolved her of this culpability. Nonetheless, this was not the locust of abuse being equated with “torture” at Abu Ghraib.) I agree with Ehrenreich that women can indeed be abusers, and in very small ways in comparison abuse did take place at the hands of women at Abu Ghraib. Nonetheless, this abuse cannot be equated with the perception of abuse given the photographs of detainee treatment at Abu Ghraib, which is why I distinguish between instrumental and expressive abuse. Remember,

Harman repeatedly reported the abuse she saw and to no avail. In this case, a woman did say “no,” it is just that her voice was not heard given the masculinist system of value within the military.

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I am also surprised that feminist, activist, and playwright Eve Ensler bought into the “reality” of the photograph of Lynndie England holding a leash that was tethered around a detainee’s neck without asking about the context of the picture. Ensler posits that England must have been sexually abused in her childhood and that this abuse must have hurt her in some fundamental manner to make her act this way now. Ensler states

“She’s been robbed of her self-esteem and went into the military to get some of it back”

(Ensler 2007, 18). Ensler argues that within this military, England was able to achieve some level of power and prestige, and that England felt that she had to prove herself within this masculinist atmosphere. Ensler even goes so far as to say “women’s ability to empathize has been so tragically damaged that we [women] are capable of torture”

(Ensler 2007, 18). Ensler does not bother with the testimony of numerous expert witnesses who interpreted the leash incident in terms of England’s desire to expressively please Graner, and also the fact that she posed for a photo in which she held the leash for a few seconds, but was not involved in actively and instrumentally dragging the prisoner by the leash. Ensler asks the question “I still don’t get how you could put a leash on a human being…I still don’t see how putting a leash on someone and dragging them around and humiliating them could ever be right in your brain” (Ensler 2007, 18). First,

England was not dragging the prisoner around, and second, the military doctor at Abu

Ghraib testified (through a written affidavit admitted into evidence) that the leash was used to control this prisoner under the doctor’s orders because the prisoner was psychotic, and the medical staff had no medications or other means to normatively control the psychosis. Ensler sees England’s actions aimed at proving herself within the masculinist military cultural atmosphere and states, “She had to out-macho the most macho in order

131 to prove that she was ‘one of the guys’” (Ensler 2007, 19). Ensler speculates widely, without investigating, facts, evidence, or testimony regarding this incident.

Regarding the sexualness of the abuse, Ensler argues that England (and the women of Abu Ghraib” were acting out their aggressions with regard to abuse that must have happened to them. What is ironic is that only men were shown in the courts-martial to be the abusers with regard to the sexual and homoerotic nature of abuse, and thus

Ensler’s analysis should be instead focused on the men doing abuse, and thus conversely, and according to Ensler, these male guards as having a history of sexual abuse.

Moreover, there was no evidence at all that England or Harman had been sexually abused—and this is something the four expert witnesses in psychology and psychiatry automatically considered, and rejected as an explanation.

Ensler asks if it is possible for women to act differently than men if women have power in a patriarchal system. My answer is yes, it is possible. My proof is that

England, Ambuhl, and Harman, the women of Abu Ghraib Tier 1A and 1B, did have

power and did not act in abusive ways. Instead, they were shown to be helpers in their

jobs and with regard to detainee treatment. Even the “torture” that they were involved in

was not only expressive in nature, but very minor compared to the physical and mental

torture of the male guards of Tier 1A and 1B.

I argue that England and Harman both had power in the prison of Abu Ghraib and

used this power to transform this situation through telling those above them of the abuse

taking place in this part of the prison. Additionally, through courts-testimony and court

room exhibits (such as Harman’s letter to her wife regarding her fear of the situation of

abuse at Abu Ghraib), these women did act as Ensler’s “vagina warriors,” a term Ensler

132 uses to describe women who make sure abuse doesn’t happen to other people, and who are aimed at ending violence against other humans (Ensler 2007, 19). Ensler even goes so far as to call for the women of Abu Ghraib to take responsibility for the abuse that they are assumed to have caused or actively participated in given their depictions in the leaked photographs of detainee abuse. Unfortunately, this goes against most philosophical theories of ethical accountability in that these women would be taking the blame for actions that they did not commit.

What is important to remember is that assumptions regarding single images are

dangerous and that images occur within contexts and should be understood in these

terms. What the problem here may be is that women are being shown in photographs

doing things that are out of our conceptual association of women as caregivers, and not

abusers, but the victims of abuse itself. In the situation of both England and Harman I

argue that these women were indeed “the abused” given their assumed actions regarding

the photographs of abuse and their assumed moral culpability for these actions. I

honestly expect more from feminism that this kind of shallow analysis. This is about

power, and specifically the power of image, and as feminists know frames of reference

are necessary for interpretation of the “facts” of women’s lives.

In this section, I have analyzed the courts-martial of both England and Harman,

sworn statements and testimony, treatment of the detainees, as well as the now infamous

photographs depicting the conditions and abuse at Abu Ghraib. Throughout this

discussion, I have shown that the Parsonian distinction between instrumental and

expressive roles served a multitude of functions simultaneously and especially given the

masculinist code of the military. For example, Parsonian theory applied to an analysis of

133 meetings with the defense attorneys and expert witnesses for the defense; when analyzing the charges that Lynndie England faced in both of her trials and when providing an interpretation of the infamous picture of England with the leashed detainee; an analysis of my experiences at the trials; the charges against Sabrina Harman and the kind of work

Harman did at Abu Ghraib; and also to an analysis of the “torture” of the detainees.

Specifically, I show how power, usually unaccounted for in Parsonian gender role distinctions, can be understood with regard to Parsonian instrumental and expressive roles. Moreover, I move beyond Parsons, and provide a complex and sophisticated application of Parsons’ initial typology that leads to new concepts such as expressive torture, expressive power, instrumental torture, and instrumental chaos.

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5. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IDENTITY SIMULACRA AND GENDER

HYPERREALITY: AMERICAN MILITARY AND THE CASE OF ABU

GHRAIB

“The simulacrum is never what hides the truth-- it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true" ~Ecclesiastes

Jean Baudrillard, sometimes called the high-priest of postmodernism, develops a theory of postmodern culture, which postulates that culture itself is now dominated by simulations. This means that objects and discourses have no firm origin, no referents, and no ground or foundation upon which to locate meaning. Specifically, according to

Baudrillard, the Sassurean process of signification (signifier + signified = a meaningful

sign) has failed to produce meaning.

One of the issues I am interested in analyzing is what was “real” and what was

“simulacra” about the role of women at Abu Ghraib prison and at the trials. I am

interested in providing a discussion of how what is considered theoretically "real"

instructs the formation of conceptual and organizational paradigms, and especially

categories for thinking about sex and gender. Recent understandings of gender in

sociology describe gender as something that is socially constructed and specific with

regards to conception only within a particular context. This means that what is

understood as “feminine” or “masculine” differs with regard to each culture’s

construction of gender categories. These social constructions come to define how gender

is understood and performed within society, and thereby function as a theoretical

“reality” within these cultures and constructions themselves. In this way, and using

postmodern theory as a perspective for understanding realness, gender identity and

135 identity in general can be understood as something that is produced in relation to a socially constructed normative category of “realness.”

I describe Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra and simulation in order to provide an understanding of how “reality” and the associated notion of “real” are constructed in

postmodern theory. Within this discussion, Baudrillard’s term ‘hyperreality’ is defined to

mean that which has no referential origin or reality apart from a self-legitimating system.

In a postmodern culture, it is this hyperreality that comes to function as the “real,” or a simulacrum of reality itself (Baudrillard 1983). A hyperreality for Baudrillard is a

condition where reality itself becomes replaced by simulacra, and I argue that gender

constructions themselves are simulacra categories for identity. These systems exist

because we as a culture have socially constructed them as correct ways for understanding and categorizing our experiences, however they have no reality behind their signs, and are thus hyperreal in that they function as canopies for thought, yet are ultimately constructed categories themselves. In a postmodern culture, it is this hyperreality that

comes to function as the “real,” or a simulacrum of reality itself that can never be fully

pinned down. Regarding gender categories, Baudrillard would argue that gender

significations are free-floating symbols that individuals in a postmodern culture latch

onto as a means for identity construction.2 Again, these significations are simulacrum

because there is no firm referent or origin to which they attach themselves with regard to

meaning, and thus only have a use-value of fleeting substantiation.

This notion of simulacra becomes important for Judith Butler’s theory of gender

performance (and her philosophy of identity categories) in that Butler states that all

gender is drag (Butler 1993a; Butler 1993b). This means that, according to Butler,

2 Nonetheless, in Seduction, Baudrillard is complicated on this point as the “feminine” is very real for him.

136 gender meanings are not attached to any category for explication, and that gender categories themselves are neither naturally connected to either heterosexuality nor connected to sex categories for their elucidation.3 Gender, for Butler, is thus only

theatrical production—a hoax or over-performed dramatic, and this is gender’s

“realness”—the production of gender. Specifically, I think that Butler is theorizing

similarly to Baudrillard in her statement about drag in that gender is something that is

done, performed, consumed, and produced according to a relational system of gender

categories (a hyperreality) that have been socially constructed by society. In this way,

these gender categories are simulacra in that they do not refer to any reality outside of

their conception. Traditionally, sex, gender, and sexuality categories have been

understood as intricately related for their elucidation. However, Butler, and most

feminist theorists, now argue against this association, and state that these categories are

theoretically independent and separate from one another. Thus, the hyperreality of

gender lies in the idea that gender is understood in terms of socially constructed

categories, and thus do not reflect anything about “reality” itself.

However, for Butler, and unlike Baudrillard, there is a legitimating system based

on power that serves to render gender performances as valuable within society (Butler

1993a, 1993b). This means that, for Butler, “realness” regarding gender identity is

something that we conform to with regards to cultural norms of identity realness, and can

be thought of as a parody or as mimicry. (The “real” in this case being rigid gender

conceptualizations based on heteronormativity and a binary understanding of sex

3 The connection of Baudrillard and Butler is important and has not been made in gender theorizing thus far. Most feminists reject postmodern theory because they believe that it loses the ability to theorize about women’s experiences in specific contexts. However, I argue that postmodern theory allows for a further and vital insight into how gender is conceptualized in association with power.

137 categories.) In this way, Butler describes the cultural rules and laws for gender

understanding and value, yet deconstructs these rules through the separation of sex and

sexuality categories from gender categories. Butler’s project then is to get away from

understanding gender in terms of sex categories and heteronormativity, as she does not

argue for the parroting of existing gender categories, but points out that these categories

faultily constitute juridical systems for gender value (Butler 1993a; Butler 1993b; Butler

2004).

Consequently, for Butler, what is important is that these “rules” for gender value

are foundationally social constructions, thereby attesting to their “simulacra” (in

Baudrillard’s terms) statuses. Although Baudrillard does not posit any kind of

Foucaultian and juridical power doctrine for gender identity, both Butler and Baudrillard

see gender as ultimately a social construction. Because of their social construction,

gender categories themselves can thusly be understood as simulations and simulacra,

which are located in Baudrillard’s world of hyperreality, as the reality of the “self” has

been replaced by simulacra, or the representations of things (the self in this case) that

come to replace the thing being represented. In this case, an individual’s gender has

come to be replaced by the postmodern fleeting identity tags of gender (Baudrillard) and

the associated system of allowable gender representations that dictate “realness” (Butler).

In this section, I analyze Baudrillard’s descriptions of boundaries in a postmodern

culture, and apply this account to Abu Ghraib prison. Also, I discuss gender identity in a

postmodern culture using the example of the “metrosexual soldier.” I analyze the notion

of drag and Baudrillard’s seduction, and show that Sabrina Harman actually “seduces”

the masculinist and heterosexist military’s “code” through her being both female and

138 lesbian, and also a member of the masculinist military. This means that Harman evidenced signs of masculinity, heterosexuality, and homosexuality in her identity performance, thereby displaying more signs than reality.

Another issue I analyze is “simulacra” in relation to gender issues at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial. I show that spaces and roles within the military have been gendered in their constructions in terms of the code of normative gender realness (a simulacra of realness itself), and show how individuals and actions both reify and subvert these gendered constructions, thereby questioning the “realness” of these constructions.

Within this discussion, I show how the social construction of gender and its “real” performances (because reality is in the performance) actually culminate in an understanding of gender that is itself a simulacrum, in that gender categories are socially constructed in terms of a “code,” with regards to the role of women at both the prison and

the trials. I analyze the gendered construction of the military as a simulacra of

masculinity (remember, gender is not real, it is produced/educed), how military uniforms

give bodies legitimate expression while also policing gender according to the code of

gender enforced, evidences of “femininity” within the masculinist military through the

ritualized style of the body in terms of military gender politics, the association of the

doctrine of separate spheres within the military itself vis-à-vis gender roles and gender

expressions, and the perceived consequences of offending the masculinist and

heterosexist symbolic military code.

I analyze non-normative gender practices that call into question the validity of this

entire system of gender and show its “real” nature to be simulacra.4 I argue that it is

4 I am aware that masculinity is also culturally contextual and socially constructed, and describe the masculinity within the military as that of the Parsonian instrumental soldier, which culminates in a

139 possible that Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra can come to function as a “policing” technique, albeit impermanent, where what are being enforced are power-simulacra.

This notion of “power-simulacra” is a term that is helpful in understanding power associated with Baudrillard’s theorizing, where power is understood as the legitimation of certain, yet unstable, significations. Real bodies are given legitimacy in terms of the social construction and championed simulacra of gender. Again, gender and identity categories gain legitimacy in terms of a socially constructed normative standard, where what is “real” is understood as relative to the standards of a particular power configuration, even though this power configuration is itself simulacra, and is thus not associated with any connection to sex or sexuality. Actually, this is all about the power to define, albeit in no long-lasting or rooted way, the function of categories for gender elucidation that affect social legitimation and social value. Thus, these categories are simulacrum in their construction, but real in their consequences. I evidence this claim with many examples of how the “code” itself is shown to be faulty characterizations of reality, and thus that the “code” is itself “hyperreal.”

Finally, Butler’s notion of identity categories is important with regard to how the

“rotten apples” marked and inscribed their bodies through the use of tattoo, both claiming and subverting a system of allowable constructions of identity simultaneously.

5.1 Identity and Signification as Hyperreal Simulacra: Maps and the

“Metrosexual Soldier””

stereotypical account of masculinity as it is understood by laypersons within society. This is not a critical approach or understanding of masculinity, yet is functional with regards to how I saw masculinity constructions emerge within the courts-martial. I provide examples that counter this construction of masculinity, thereby evidencing different possible constructions of masculinity. This paper is not focused on a critical discussion of masculinity itself and instead endeavors to describe how conceptions of masculinity serve to create categories of understanding gender based on power.

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If once we were able to view the Borges fable in which the cartographers of the Empire draw a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly (the decline of the Empire witnesses the fraying of this map, little by little, and its fall into ruins, though some shreds are still discernible in the deserts -- the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction testifying to a pride equal to the Empire and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, a bit as the double ends by being confused with the real through aging)-- as the most beautiful allegory of simulation, this fable has now come full circle for us, and possesses nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.

Jean Baudrillard (1994), Simulacra and Simulations

In Baudrillard's above citation, he concerns himself with abstractions of a map

and the delineation of boundaries. He leads us to a contemplation of how lines of

demarcation, even in the metaphorical and theoretical sense, are established. He

suggests that these lines of demarcation are in the service of a specific conception of the

"real," and therefore instigates thought about how this "real" is constructed or located. Is

the map of written boundaries “real?” Is the territory itself bounded in some way that

allows for the production of a map? Simulation is the term that Baudrillard uses to

induce the project of locating the "real.” However, for Baudrillard, simulation is the

notion that what is referred to as “real” is without origin or reality. This means that what

once might have referred to some “referential being or substance” now holds no identity

apart from the actual simulation itself (Baudrillard 1983, 169). The distinctions between

object and representation, “thing and idea,” according to Baudrillard, are no longer valid

relationships (Baudrillard 1983).

Consequently, for Baudrillard, locating the "real" becomes a perpetual game of

referential referents, both pointing toward and away from "truth," as "truth" itself is

shown to be only a phantasm or spectacle. Says Baudrillard, "Today's abstraction is no

longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer

141 that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a

real without origin or reality: a hyperreal" (Baudrillard 1994). Thus, Baudrillard uses the term ‘hyperreal’ to denote the so-called “reality” that a simulation refers, a world of self-referential signs (Baudrillard 1983). In a hyperreality, “reality” itself has collapsed, and only image, illustration, or simulation is left. Additionally, in a hyperreality, the model of “reality” is more real than the reality it supposedly represents (Rosenau 1992).

With regards to gender, Baudrillard would say that gender “realness” is nonsense, as tags

of identity are fleeting, and the postmodern culture only allows individuals the ability to

grasp gender identity-signs in unsubstantial ways.

This “reality” is not a counterfeit representation or a “dissimulate,” as no attempt

to represent any “reality” takes place. Instead, Baudrillard’s point is that what is indeed

real is the absence of “reality.” Says Poster, “[Baudrillard’s] simulations are different

from fictions or lies in that they present an absence as a presence, the imaginary as the

real, absorbing the real within itself” (Baudrillard 1983, 6).

Additionally, Baudrillard discusses illusions, and claims that illusions make no

sense in a hyperreality, as the “real” is no longer possible, from which an illusion would

replicate itself (Baudrillard 1983, 180). Says Baudrillard,

Representation starts from the principle that the sign and the real are equivalent. Conversely, simulation starts from the Utopia of this principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value…Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself simulacrum (Baudrillard 1983, 173).

Thus, for Baudrillard, “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor

even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself”

(Baudrillard 1983, 170). Considering identity in a postmodern culture, it follows that

142 realness is about signification and not about any ontological claim, but a grasping of hyperreal tags of identity such as gender. Thus gender categories for Baudrillard are only

phantasmic creations that do not point to any kind of natural identifications of the body,

neither in terms of sex, sexuality, or any other categorical claim of coherence. Instead,

gender simulations are representations of identity that are illusory.

Consider Baudrillard’s map. It is neither the territory nor the map that demarcates

boundaries. Instead, it is the "real," and specifically a second-order simulacra of the

"real," that allows us to make sense of both the map's territory and the map itself. Even

though the map has eroded and the territories can no longer be depicted with any

exactness to that of the map, a "real" still exists for Baudrillard. For Baudrillard, what is

being made sense of is neither the map nor the land boundaries of territory. Instead, what

Baudrillard seems to suggest is that notions of "real" are constructed in such a way that

these notions themselves dictate "realness.” In this way, the map is "real" in terms of the

theory of "realness" itself, and in no other way.

Considering both the map and gender, what is “real” is the construction of

“reality,” and nothing else. Both the map and gender are thus self-referentially validated

in terms of some constructed theory of “realness.” What is "real" in this construction is

the construction of the "real," and nothing more. Thus, the consequence for signification

is that the signification becomes the “reality” through its construction.

Consider the Abu Ghraib prison. Like a map, one might think that when referring

to “Abu Ghraib” that they were referencing something that was stable in signification and

demarcation. However, as I have described in prior sections, the reality of Abu Ghraib

prison is that it was not well defended from daily mortar attacks, where on a frequent

143 basis the prison itself was bombed, thereby leading to the actual destruction of territorial

boundaries. Additionally, a prison might be characterized as having a closed and

bounded region, where the separation of prisoners and American military troops was

distinct. However, the prison was itself porous, meaning that it was permeable to

outsiders entering the prison grounds. One example of this that American soldiers spoke

of was specifically unauthorized Iraqis who were selling cameras on the compound itself.

Additionally, American military personnel actually lived in jail cells next to prisoners. In

this way, like Baudrillard’s map, the boundaries of the prison and its rigid instantiation

were themselves simulacra, yet functioned in a rhetorical way so as to allow for

reference. “Realness” was thus a product of signifying references, and nothing else, as

boundaries did not explicitly exist.

Although I doubt that Baudrillard would engage in discourse that promoted an

understanding of the "real" grounded in the metaphysics of the object itself, I do believe

that the reason for his project is to show how systems of "realness" are constructed and

reified, and in turn function as that which is indeed itself "real." For example, one way to

understand identity in a postmodern culture is the grabbing of signs by individuals that

function as identity, where the signs serve as the demarcation of the self. This is the case

with the hyperreal simulacra tag of gender identity. Philosophically, this is a radically

different way to understand identity, as this conception has nothing at all to do with the

individual self, creating identity from within, body versus soul or mind, etc., as

simulations of identity are something to be consumed and produced.

Consider the postmodern gender identity of metrosexual. This category for

identity is something that was socially constructed to describe a sexed male who is

144 heterosexual, but who participated in conspicuous ritualistic grooming that is

stereotypically (although problematically) associated with both femininity and

homosexuality, such that ritualized grooming is equated with hyper-femininity and

“gayness.”

Now consider the juxtaposed image of the decorated war hero soldier, who is

polished in presentation, shoes shined, representing the many achieved medals and

ribbons, hair molded in such a certain way as to conform to a “code,” and who ritually

and vigorously performs the identity “soldier” through production and consumption of an

idealized image-sign. In this way, the military identity, like the metrosexual, can be understood as the conforming to a certain characterization associated with the significations of a certain free floating image-signs. Hence, the “metrosexual-soldier” is a simulacra identity, one that is achieved through the imitation of the socially constructed

code of gender itself. Again, in this way, "real" becomes a constructed simulation of

reality, and is thus, according to Baudrillard, itself hyperreal. As stated, this hyperreality

functions as the "real." Says Baudrillard, "It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges

persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours"

(Baudrillard 1994, 1).

Hence, the postmodern world that Baudrillard describes is one that questions an

objective standpoint or privileged position for determining what counts as “real.” This is

an important postmodern project in that the ideal of an all-encompassing and objective

notion of reality is challenged. Additionally, one outcome of this project is that power

structures are identified as providing conceptual schema for understanding reality.

Interestingly though, what Baudrillard questions is not only the existence of a so-called

145

“real,” but he also questions the notion of a simulated model of reality that exists as the standard from which to judge the “real.” Says Baudrillard, “the age of simulation thus begins with a liquidation of all referentials” (Baudrillard 1983, 170). This becomes interesting when thinking about identity in that Baudrillard shows how power is used to prescribe and inscribe those identities that are allowable for consumption and production of identity itself—or allowable simulacra.

This discussion, of "realness" and boundary demarcation, captures one theoretical project that contemporary postmodern feminists and gender and culture theorists alike

concern themselves with, namely the questioning and critiquing of how systems, both

used to understand the world and to organize knowledge, have been themselves constructed. The interesting focus of this critique is on how some notion of "real" has been valued and in turn reified such that it (the "real") functions as the foundational system for understanding within this paradigm. A simulacrum of “real” thus functions as a foundational metaphysics. Certainly feminists are interested in the conceptualization of these systems and especially with regards to their theoretical foundations, as these foundations are the sites (the "real") from which blueprints for social order is located.

These blueprints, in turn, facilitate the erection of social reality (or a social epistemology) in terms of some specific design (as instructed by the "real").

Feminists and postmodernists alike have questioned this "design" (this "real") in terms of its problematic theoretical construction, and specifically with reference to gender and race inequalities, assumptions of heterosexuality, and the primary positing of whiteness. At the center of this project is the elucidation of the ways in which our world is parsed, separated and categorized, such that an understanding of the organizational

146 schema (the "real"), forced upon that which is being conceived of (thereby making its conception "real"), is itself dissected and critiqued (and for the postmodernist, deconstructed). In this way, this feminist project "speaks" to Baudrillard's metaphoric attempt to locate the "real" map/territory boundary, as both projects are focused on an understanding of how "real" is defined and informed by a pre-existing system that itself dictates "realness." In this way, both projects are concerned not with metaphysical realness, but with theoretical paradigm foundations and that which is conceptually "real" in terms of this paradigm.

5.2 “Power-Simulacra” and Gender Categories

Contemporary feminist, gender theorist, and rhetorician, Judith Butler, has a theory of identity categories that can be applied to further explain Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra. This coupling of Baudrillard and Butler is unique and is not something that either postmodernists or critical theorists have considered. Butler’s critique of identity categories, however, is important to consider when discussing notions of “realness” in that she also shows how categorical “realness” and value are relationally constructed with regards to gender categories, and in terms of sex and sexuality categories. Like most feminists and social scientists, Butler’s project speaks to the separation of the categories

of sex, gender, and sexuality, such that these categories are understood as distinct, and

unlike stereotypical understandings of gender, where male=masculine and

female=feminine, and both associations are conceptually heteronormative.

Butler’s discussion of relationally understood categories demonstrates two

important things: the relational power that each binary has to the other, and the limiting

options for identity construction given the conceived of categories for identity itself.

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Butler's argument is that theoretical binary pair relations (such as male/female and masculine/feminine) are both unstable and incoherent foundations upon which to construct theoretical paradigms. Butler considers the relationship between binary pairs,

and uses the theoretical tactic of destabilizing the dominant binary in order to challenge

its dominant status. This, in turn, questions not only the elevated status of the dominant

binary, but also questions the entire binary relationship's categorical claim of coherence.

Binary relations result in problematic understandings of gender for Butler, and as it turns out, Butler shows that it is the subordinate binary that actually challenges the status of the

binary relationship. Additionally, this project is important with regards to gender

categories in that it destabilizes both the association of male/masculine and

female/feminine in terms of gender and sex categories, showing its ultimate socially

constructed connectedness. Thus, Butler shows the hyperreality between these

connections themselves.

Consider as an example gender constructions in the American military. One way

that gender has been constructed within the U.S. military is through the masculinist

system of the military itself, where masculinity functions as the dominant power-

simulacra with regards to gender hierarchy. (Remember, for Baudrillard this “power-

simulacra” is a fleeting attempt at signification, but for Butler this is a juridical law for

gender value.) This economy is one that is based on power, control, reason, strength,

rationality, and order— traits used to describe masculinity in the binary system of

masculine/feminine. This economy can be juxtaposed to understandings of femininity,

where femininity is defined as irrational, emotional, in need of control, and weakness,

and in terms of a relational definition to masculinity. The masculinist economy of the

148 military is one normalizing structure that constructs and reifies notions of gender value within the military itself. In this way, the masculinist economy functions as the “real” with regards to judging and policing gender expressions, as this “realness” allows for understanding gender value within the military context. Hence, the dominant simulacra of gender has been conceptualized within the military as masculine, and this is its hyperreality, as this description of masculinity as a standard culminates in an understanding of a “power-simulacra” that is constructed within this cultural context.

This is a text of gender that is socially constructed with regards to value, among other things, and therefore has no reality apart from the system within which it is pieced together. Hence, this is a discourse of gender that is simulacra at its foundations, where power can be understood as compliance with these simulacra formations. For Butler, and unlike Baudrillard, actual power is associated with this account of gender, as bodies are policed and given value in terms of legitimation with regard to the rules of this system itself.

Additionally, Butler is especially concerned with heterosexist frameworks for understanding sex and gender, such that male/masculine and female/feminine are understood in heterosexist opposition, and she calls these “exclusionary gender norms.”

Butler wants to open up the possibilities for gender and questions the ways in which the very thinking of what is possible in gendered life is foreclosed by certain habitual and violent presumptions—namely the denotation of constraining, socially constructed gender categories themselves. It makes sense then that Butler’s project is aimed at making gender conceptualizations thinkable, because in the absence of reality, only the socially constructed categories used to understand (the simulacra of) identity allow for

149 conceptualizations of identity. These presumptions are exactly the categories of the

“real” that Baudrillard writes about, as these presumptions constrain the understanding of

gender itself. These categories are not “real’ in the metaphysical sense, but function as

“real” in terms of organization and group solidification, and thus as “power-simulacra.”

Consider Sabrina Harman and her military courts-martial in terms of the

military’s masculinist simulacra identity and also Butler’s heterosexist “exclusionary

gender norms.” It came out in the Harman courts-martial that Harman is a lesbian

soldier. The social construction of gender has historically equated both femininity and

masculinity with heterosexuality in that femininity and masculinity were seen as opposite

binaries, thereby mimicking heterosexual lived-relations. The social-construction of the

military follows this gender characterization in that it is conceptually a heterosexist

institution, where homosexual individuals are not welcome per membership as

homosexual individuals. Instead, homosexual military personnel are required in

accordance with military’s “exclusionary sexuality norms” to render their identities secret. This is the consequence of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that has been implemented by law into the armed forces, thereby constructing a standard of the “real” for identity.

Nonetheless, it remains that there are indeed homosexuals within the military, yet they are closeted in their identities. This is a perfect example of Baudrillard’s notion of the “code” as instructing “reality” in that “reality” is not represented, and only formed through the simulation of heterosexuality, thereby culminating in the simulacra of reality in terms of the “power-simulacra” of heterosexuality. Harman’s identity thus functions as a simulacrum identity of heterosexuality in that she is understood in terms of a military

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“power-simulacra” of heterosexuality; yet, she is also subversive of this identity given her actual status as lesbian.

Butler’s project also shows the socially constructed notion of gender itself to be a hyperreality in the sense that Baudrillard employs, as gender is shown to be a system of

“realness” that is constructed and reified, and in turn functions as that which is itself

“real.” Remember Baudrillard’s map, where what is deemed "real" is in terms of the theory of "realness" itself, and in no other way. For Butler, gender categories are thus

“real” in that they are self-referentially validated in terms of this theory of gender

“realness”—or what can be understood as Baudrillard’s “code.” Thus, gender itself can be understood as hyperreal simulacra of reality in that it comes to represent reality, serves as a blueprint for social reality and social realness in its phantasmic creation, and functions as a means for the comprehension of identity productions that are culturally

allowable and thus deemed “legitimate.” For Butler, this is about value within a power

system in that legitimation is the consequence of adhering to the culturally instructed and

created “code” for understanding gender, where those who fall outside of these gender

prescriptions are neither given affirmation for their gender productions nor the opportunity to construct gender in a way that is socially comprehensible. Consequently,

what I am saying is that the socially constructed categories of gender are in service to a

reified notion of the “real,” which is simulacra at its theoretical base. Gender thus becomes a self-legitimating system when understood in terms of binaries that seemingly police the way that gender is thought about and done.

Interestingly, one of the comments heard at the Harman sentencing was that she was being punished for being a lesbian in a heterosexist military, a female within a

151 masculinist military, and as a scapegoat for detainee abuse given her many minority statuses.

Butler’s critique of heterosexualized identity categories thus rests on the notion

that the polarities of what is included in a category and what is not included are

inherently reactive, both reflecting and reflected, in the claiming of an identity category.

When individuals conform and contort their identities to the hyperreal categories of

gender, or when gender identities are conceived of in terms of these categories, what has

taken place is the rule by simulacra of reality. Says Butler commenting on normative

sexuality identities, “gay is to straight not as copy is to original, but, rather, as copy is to

copy” (Butler 1993b,41). This statement echoes Baudrillard’s claim about simulacra as

being “a copy of a copy, for which there is no original” (Baudrillard 1983,169).

Interestingly, since gender categories are socially constructed and understood in terms of

a context, there is no original understanding of gender, and only a hyperreal doctrine used

to control actual bodies. Perhaps the claim should be that “gender is a simulacrum—a

copy of a copy for which there is no original.”

It is important to remember that Butler thinks that the identity category that

instructs heteronormativity is itself rallied against at the site of these identity productions

and categorical power struggles through the use of parody and mimicry, “through

repetition of the law [of heterosexuality] into hyperbole” (Butler 1993b,122). This is

very Foucaultian with regards to understanding power, and Baudrillard argued against

Foucault’s theoretical conceptions of how power operated. Nonetheless, for Butler,

through contesting the dominant category (the theoretical act itself) the ideal of

heterosexuality is subverted, thereby culminating in the questioning of the theoretical

152 primacy of the category heterosexual (Butler 1993b). Think here of Harman’s lesbian identity as a member of the heterosexist army. The message about the “rule” or “code” of military heterosexuality is that it is only a simulacra code, as plenty of closeted soldiers exist within the bounds of the American military system, and thus subversion of the “law” has taken place. The heterosexual doctrine of the military is thus shown to be a rule by simulacra of reality in that it does not represent any reality in its conception.

Again, there are after all plenty of gay and lesbian soldiers who would attest to this if

sanctions would not be taken against them. Interestingly, many former military members

speak out against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy once they exit the military itself.

Hence, Butler’s project is aimed at understanding how notions of “realness” come

to be elevated as themselves “real” within discourse. This part of Butler’s theorizing can be aligned to Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, a condition where simulacra come to function as that which is theoretically real. For the military, then, a hyperreality exists with regard to the simulacra of heterosexuality that is required by the “code.”

5.3 Seduction and Drag

Interestingly, Baudrillard develops a thesis on gender with his understanding of seduction as belonging to the order of sign and ritual, and as that which removes a dimension from real space (Baudrillard 1990). Says Baudrillard of seduction, “The only thing truly at stake is mastery of the strategy of appearances, against the force of being and reality” (Baudrillard 1990, 9). Seduction, then, is itself a seduction “…a mode of circulation that is itself secretive and ritualistic, a sort of immediate initiation that plays by its own rules…” (Baudrillard 1990, 81). Seduction is an attempt to lure theory away from what Baudrillard thinks seduced it, namely the political, significatory and libidinal

153 economics of depth and meaning. Says Baudrillard “…seduction’s enchantment puts an end to all libidinal economies, and every sexual or psychological contract, replacing them with a dizzying spiral of responses and counter-responses…” (Baudrillard 1990, 86).

This is similar to Butler’s notion of policing strategies of gender, where what is necessary to show the ultimate constructedness of these normalizing systems is their

“repetition into hyperbole”—exaggeration thereby demonstrating inherent meaningless

(Butler 1993a). Additionally, Baudrillard’s seduction shows what Butler is concerned with making clear, namely that legitimating systems and conceptual schemes (political, libidinal, etc) inform and provide the “code” behind ways of thinking.

Again, important to Baudrillard’s theorizing is the idea of simulacra, which refers to a lack of meaning, and without possibility of meaning. Applied to gender, Baudrillard would argue that all gender categories have imploded with regard to meaning, and therefore do not serve to categorize the world in any meaningful way. Contrary to this nihilistic claim, Butler states that gender categories have been constructed in ways that limit gender conception (Butler 1993a). For Baudrillard, there are too many conceptions of gender to make any sense of the category itself, and thus the category implodes with regard to meaning. For Butler, the existing schemas for gender understanding are limiting and need to be exacted to include all possible meanings. Nonetheless, both theories speak to the constraints of existing gender schema deemed “real”—Baudrillard with his notion of hyperreality and Butler with her attempt to render normalizing categories meaningless.

It is important here to point out that I read Baudrillard as attempting to get out from under theoretical canopies that instruct ways of conceptualization. But, what

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Baudrillard does not account for is that even his descriptions of gender seduction considers real bodies, such as transvestites, that are envisaged in terms of power- simulacra, or the simulacra of gender that has been reified socially to serve as “reality,” albeit a hyperreality itself.

Consider Baudrillard’s account of transvestites. Baudrillard gives an example of

seduction, namely that of the Barcelona drag queens, who wear women’s makeup and

clothing, but keep their moustaches and hairy chests. Again, there is an excess of

appearance for Baudrillard, as there are more signs than “reality,” again pointing to the

irony of too much reality or hyperreality.

Uncertainty is the greatest in the play of femininity, such as with transvestism. With the transvestite, the signs are not duplicated with biology- they don't match up. This is the seduction of the signs themselves. Perhaps the transvestites ability to seduce comes straight from parody- a parody of sex by its over-signification (Baudrillard 1990, 14).

Thus for Baudrillard, there are too many signs of gender, both masculine and feminine, thereby providing a dilemma with regards to categorization of either. Within this image there is an excess of appearance, more signs than there is reality, and thus too

much reality such that the signs do not match up. So, for example, considering the

transvestite, the signs are not duplicated with biology. For Baudrillard, this is not

production, but the seduction of the signs themselves. "Perhaps the transvestites ability

to seduce comes straight from parody—a parody of sex by its over-signification

(Baudrillard 1990, 14). This is his “seduction”—a hyperreal simulacra of reality itself.

Baudrillard articulates the complexity of the relationship between production, seduction,

and the drag queens when he says that “The signs of the drag queens make the claim that

155 femininity is naught but the signs with which men rig it up…It is a challenge to the female model by way of a female game” (Baudrillard 1990, 14). This is the strength of

seduction, the implication that a category is actually nothing (the female is “nothing” for

Baudrillard), the artifice is greater than the reality, and that “the feminine exists in the

signs but there is no reality behind the signs” (Baudrillard 1990, 14). In this way, the

signs themselves suggest a challenge in terms of integrity of the category feminine, and

for gender categories in sum. Hence seduction is an ironic, alternative form that breaks

signification and provides “a space of play and defiance” (Baudrillard 1990, 21). This is

a theoretical dual of sorts, according to Baudrillard, since seduction is above all a strategy

of displacement—it is seduction that prevails in the long term because it implies a

reversible, indeterminate order (Baudrillard 1990, 22).

Consider Sabrina Harman as an example of Baudrillard’s seduction. In numerous

photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib, she is shown displaying masculinity in her dress, in

her membership as a military soldier, while wearing the masculine drag of a military

utilities uniform (a t-shirt and fatigues), and as not evidencing femininity in her

appearance. In this way, Harman was wearing the “drag” of the military and not the

“drag” of femininity. Additionally, Harman was a military soldier who existed as female

within the masculinist “code” of the military itself, thereby further evidencing the use of

masculinist “drag” for identity.

Considering gender and sexuality, Harman actually existed as both a female and a

lesbian within the heterosexist and masculinist “code” of the military, and this was most

evident when her wife took the stand on her behalf during her courts-martial as a

character witness. There was a seduction (an excess of appearance) with Harman as a

156 member of the military, as a lesbian, and as a female, and these identities rendered the military’s masculinist and heterosexist “code” unintelligible, thereby showing its ultimate constructed and simulacra nature. By the very virtue of Harman being female within the masculinist military, and as a lesbian with a closeted heterosexual identity within this military, these identities seduced the military’s code of constructed masculinity and heterosexuality. Harman evidences simulacra in that she was identified in terms of all of the following: a military “power-simulacra” of heterosexuality, a homosexual given her lesbian identity, and a female in the masculinist military. This is a subversion of the

“code” into oblivion, which makes Harman’s identity a “seduction,” according to

Baudrillard. Additionally, by remaining under the radar and the “don’t ask don’t tell” requirement of the army, Harman subverted the very system that attempted to control her by being gay and wearing the drag of the military uniform openly. This is subversive of the military’s heteronormativity and is an example of troubling the gendered masculine code of the military. Hence, there are too many conflicting signs, both masculine and feminine, heterosexual and homosexual, thereby leading to this seduction.

According to Baudrillard, the “feminine” is not just seduction; it also suggests a challenge to the male in that the status of the categorical male cannot be understood as the inversion of the feminine. With this example, and in accord with Butler, Baudrillard questions the connectedness of gender and sex categories and shows their ultimate disassociation. Even so, says Baudrillard, “Every structure can adapt to its subversion or inversion, but not to the reversion of its terms. Seduction is this reversible form”

(Baudrillard 1990, 21). This is evidenced with Harman’s inversion of the sexuality and gender signs of the American military “code,” thereby showing its hyperreal nature.

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Hence, Baudrillard understands seduction as an ironic, alternative form, one that breaks the referentially of sex and provides a space of play and defiance (Baudrillard 1990).

This is similar to Butler’s project of destabilizing binary pairs and showing the dominant binary to be a faulty construction of power over the subordinate, yet

Baudrillard takes it one step further and claims that an implosion of meaning has occurred given the displacement of symbolic referents. For Baudrillard then, seduction represents mastery over the symbolic universe, while power represents only mastery of the real universe (Baudrillard 1990). Butler is concerned with this “real universe” (and the consequences for embodiment and actual bodies), where narratives of gender exist and structure reality in terms of power. Although it is true that Baudrillard renders gender meaningless via seduction and the displacement (read “implosion”) of symbolic

referents, Butler basically does the same with her identification of gender categories as

tied to power, and as meaningless outside of these power systems, and especially since gender cannot be understood as apart from these normalizing systems themselves.

Consequently, Butler’s point in Gender Trouble (Butler [1990]1999) is "to show that the naturalized knowledge of gender operates as a preemptive and violent circumscription of reality,” which can be equated with Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra.

To the extent that gender norms establish what will and will not be intelligibly human, what will and will not be considered "real," they “establish the ontological field in which bodies may be given legitimate expression" (Butler 1999, xiii). This ontological field of value is socially constructed around claims of the “real,” but Butler’s point is that these claims to realness are themselves socially constructed in terms of power.

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As stated, drag is the example Butler (and Baudrillard) gives of a subversive move against the normative since it plays on the distinction between the anatomy of the performer and the gender being performed. Says Butler, "In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself—as well as its contingency"

(Butler 1993a,175). This is why Butler calls all gender “drag,” as gender for the drag queen, and all other’s claiming a gender identity, is conceived of in terms of parody of the normalizing categories (power-simulacra) of gender themselves.

For Baudrillard, the drag queens exemplify the absurdity of sexed bodies coupled with gender because in his example both “masculine” and “feminine” are shown as existing simultaneously together, thereby leading to a contradiction. Baudrillard shows gender to be simulacra because no firm referent or origin exists for signification, and only

stolen signifiers of a socially constructed master schema of referents exists. In this sense,

I argue that Baudrillard’s project can be understood in part as parallel to Butlers, as the culmination of both results in the destroying of a power system of gender, and thus results in gender implosion.

Perhaps this is why the image of Harman, a female and lesbian in the heterosexist and masculinist military, directly speaks to this point. The power system that Butler is theorizing understands Harman’s identity in terms of heterosexuality and masculinity, yet this power system is challenged by Harman’s membership to the military group as a sexed female and given her various minority statuses. However, Baudrillard’s point would be that Harman has seduced the “code” itself with her ability to produce multiple and contested identities in her attempts to locate identity, albeit a hyperreal one, within a postmodern culture.

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What is important to know is that I read Butler as a radical feminist who is not only concerned with showing how power legitimates gender conceptions, but whose project is ultimately aimed at the nullification of gender categories as a means for conceptualization. Through this nullification, her aspirations of rendering all gender performances as possible are fully realized. Hence, for Butler, it is necessary to split sex

from gender and sexuality, as in splitting the map from the territory, in order to

understand how the coupling of sex, gender, and sexuality have informed what she argues

are limiting accounts of gender. For Baudrillard, all gender categories are simulacra—a

hyperreal and self-reifying normalizing, socially constructed category that is at its

foundation a hyperreal system of gender signification based on the cultural hailing of

certain power-simulacra as “real.” This understanding of gender is thus a simulacrum of

the “real” since the system of gender and its social value becomes the “real” of gender

itself.

Both England and Harman seemingly offended the masculinist military collective

through their actions depicted in the media of the photographs of abuse, and this was

pointed out in both courts-martial cases’ closing arguments. The prosecution in both

cases was quick to point out that the actions observed in the photographs was offensive to the military, and this point became gendered when at the England trial the prosecuting attorney looked at the all male panel and stated “she has tainted our army. Her actions have made us look badly, has harmed the image of the army, and it is she who is responsible for more violence done against American soldiers in Iraq because of these photographs” (paraphrased). This seems to be a clear delineation of boundaries in terms of gender such that an us/them rhetoric is used to distinguish between good and bad,

160 masculine and feminine. Obviously England was not in the good-old-boys club of the

military and did not count as a fellow soldier anymore. She was now evidence of the

feminine irrational symbolic code. Nonetheless, this interpretation is in favor of the

hyperreal rhetoric of gender simulation, as both England (in most accounts) and Harman

were shown not to have participated in abuse of detainees, and thus this is an example of

Baudrillard’s implosion of reality itself.

5.4 The Simulacra of Gender at Abu Ghraib and the Courts-Martial

If all gender is power-simulacra, in that it is a self-perpetuating and reifying

category of the “real,” then Baudrillard and Butler would agree that gender performances

are understood with regard to their socially constructed system or “code” for reference.

For postmodern identities, it is the model of reality that is more real then the reality it is supposed to represent. In this case, I consider gender as a simulacra identity in that it is real only as a “consequence” of its performance within contexts that have created a narrative of gender “realness.”

For Butler, unlike Baudrillard, gender performances have direct consequences for bodies, where gender is realized through power and the policing/surveillance of norms.

On the other hand, Baudrillard would critique these norms in terms of simulacra norms, as gender for Baudrillard is only a game of seduction, and not about the production of identity in terms of power. Nonetheless, both Baudrillard and Butler show that systems of “realness” are themselves constructed, and then reified such that “realness” is obtained through mimicry of the normalizing system itself, or what I call “power-simulacra” and

the “rule by simulacra of reality.”

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For Baudrillard, gender identity is about cultural signs, where identity culminates in the grabbing and identifying with the many available free-floating simulacra. He does

not view gender as something “real,” and instead sees gender as hyperreal—that which

has no referential origin or reality apart from a self-legitimating system (self-referentially

valid), where the imaginary is implicated as the “real.” In a hyperreality, “reality” itself has collapsed, and only image, illustration, or simulation is left—the model of “reality” is

more real than the reality it supposedly represents. It is this hyperreality that comes to

function as the “real,” or a simulacrum of reality, as signs have been substituted for the

“real” itself. Considering identity in a postmodern culture, it follows that realness is

about signification, with gender understood as hyperreal simulacra categories for identity.

When individuals conform and contort their identities to the hyperreal categories of

gender, or when identities are understood in terms of some gender “code,” these identities

can be understood as succumbing to rule by simulacra of reality. Consequently, although

Baudrillard claims that “realness” is dominated by a simulacrum of reality, he provides

the means necessary for discussing the hyperreality of gender category simulations.

For Butler, gender is understood similarly to that of Baudrillard, however Butler

allows for an analysis of power, where the policing of self-presentation is in terms of

social norms. She argues that surveillance itself constrains our behavior and appearance

formations, and that gender is a performative identity that can be conceptualized in terms

of value with regards to its legitimating practices. Thus for Butler, there is no gender

identity behind the expression of gender, as that identity is performatively and

ritualistically constituted by the juridical system that informs gender categories. Gender

for Butler is thus an act of “doing” that is understood with regard to a socially constructed

162 standard, which is at base level a simulacra of reality. Hence, gender is simulacra for

Butler, as for Baudrillard, in that it is neither a representation of reality, nor a description of reality, as “reality” can only be found in the representation itself.

This account of gender culminates in an understanding of power as in terms of some specific understanding of “reality,” where value is socially constructed around claims of the “real.” Both Baudrillard and Butler independently argue for a deconstructed understanding of gender, and one that culminates in simulacra of gender reality. I argue that it is possible that Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra can come to function as a kind of postmodern policing technique, where what are being enforced are power-simulacra within a specific context. These power-simulacra are what the collective conscience has come to regard as “real,” albeit this notion of “reality” is unstable and could change at any time. Hence, this notion of “power-simulacra” is a concept that I find helpful in understanding power associated with Baudrillard’s theorizing, where “power” is understood as the legitimation of certain, yet unstable, significations within a specific cultural context. In addition, and applying Butler, it is possible to show how power-simulacra can be attached to the body in terms of signification and value, where the power-simulacra function as the policing mechanism for gender itself.

Consider the gender narrative of the American military, where gender is understood in terms of power-simulacra based on the code of constructed masculinity.

This text informs a conception of gender, where the text itself is what is deemed the standard from which to measure, thereby functioning as a decoder, translator, and informer of the “code” itself. In this way, the code becomes the gender standard, albeit

163 fleeting, for “rule by simulacra of reality.” This code lies in the symbols that represent, legitimate, and celebrate the order of the code itself.

I argue that the military symbolic narrative can be understood as “masculine” because what is ideally valued in the military are those traits that are stereotypically associated with masculinity, even though these characterizations are themselves socially constructed simulacra. The flip side of this is that what is deemed stereotypically feminine is not valued in the same way within the military as that which is masculine.

This division of gender in the military is itself rigid, leaving both men and women stuck in their characterizations prior to their associations with the code itself.

One way that gender is performed in the military is through the use of uniforms,

where bodies are given military legitimacy. Only certain dress is appropriate for certain

events in the military, and options exist for women with regard to military uniforms that

“feminize” them using the drag of military uniform. Not only do these uniforms control

the body in terms of identity, but they actually literally control the body in their binding

fit. These uniforms seem to function as drag in that they allow for a gendered

understanding of identity that is in terms of a normalizing ritual and code for dress.

Additionally, uniforms are worn in accordance with the “law” or rules for dress. Hence,

both identity and gender are constructed and performed through the use of uniform as

well as repetition and the ritualized style of the body itself.

Nonetheless, at Abu Ghraib, soldiers did not consistently wear uniforms, salute,

or follow other military protocol, thereby providing evidence that this “code” is at its base conceptualization simulacra. Additionally, testimony at the courts-martial showed

that uniforms did not always function to police bodies, as prisoners were kept naked, and

164 without any bounded identity markings. Additionally, American soldiers removed their nametags so that they could not be identified, thereby testifying to their actual lack of identity. As a matter of fact, because of a shortage of supplies, it was stated in numerous testimonies that Iraqi women’s panties were purchased for “clothing.” What is interesting is that a simulacra understanding of “clothing” appears in the images of detainee humiliation, as male prisoners were shown being shamed through the act of putting women’s panties on their heads for punishment.

Using this text that couples the military and masculinity as a frame for conceptualization, an analysis of gender and power within the Ft. Hood courtroom emerges. Interestingly, during the England trial, an expert witness for the defense makes this point about gender identity and military uniform clear. This expert was a female who testified as an expert witness in child and adolescent psychology for the prosecution.

Her name was Lang, and she argued that England was not suffering from depression, even though England had been on Zoloft (and anti-depressant) for 10 months now. It immediately seemed logical to me that England was not suffering depression or anxiety at the moment because of this medication, as the purpose of the medication is to alleviate these symptoms. Lang gave England a mental status exam and claimed that England displayed below average intelligence, and labeled England a “follower.” What is interesting is that Lang did not give England any objective tests for measurement of either intelligence or depression and anxiety, and argued that England had adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depression. Additionally, Lang did not consider any family history or context for England’s previous diagnosis of anxiety and depression.

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Although her testimony was interesting, her gender was made clear in the courtroom and in terms of an oppositional relationship to the masculinist economy of the military symbolic. Lang was the only female (other than the defense attorney during the

Harman trial) who wore a skirt version of the army uniform, in a room filled with men and women of the military wearing pants. This was noticed as the expert walked to the stand, in front of the filled room, and took her oath. Additionally, as Lang explained her findings as an expert, she repeatedly referenced her male mentor that she worked with as a legitimating tool for her findings. Lang stated that she had just graduated two years prior with a psychology degree and was new to Ft. Hood. In this way, she was evidencing (feminine) weakness as an expert (her role at the trials) by referring to another male expert in the field to justify her professional position and psychological findings.

Possibly the greatest evidencing of femininity made by this expert was her act of knitting a long yarn project in the middle of the courtroom, and in full view of the panel (jury) and other military peers. This is an important, if not genius move, by the defense because it served to legitimate and reify the masculinist code of the military through an oppositional subordinate relationship of femininity. Additionally, it was an all out statement that this expert knew her place and would happily occupy the subordinate feminine role through her actions, or use of craft as a feminine symbolic narrative. In this way, the defense expert was succumbing to rule by simulacra of reality.

These actions can be read as making the following claim: “The military accepts femininity so long as it is subordinate to masculinity.” After all, this was the courts- martial of a female soldier, and the gender message here is that this “rotten apple” was

“rotten” because of her lack of ability to interpret and reify the code of military

166 constructed masculinity correctly. After all, this is the hyperreal code that England was being judged in terms of, and even though this code of gender simulacra was itself constructed, it indeed functioned as power-simulacra in that it was considered to be “real” with regards to understanding gender within the military.

This interpretation reifies without critical questioning the separate spheres doctrine of gender division, namely the association of masculinity and the public sphere and femininity and the private sphere. As one can imagine it to be difficult to be a female expert witness in a room of alpha military males, the performance of femininity that this expert gave served to comfort masculinist positions in the room by bowing to the law of the father or phallus. Specifically, to be heard in a room full of masculine subjectivities,

it might have been the best legal strategy to legitimize the phallus so that the phallic order

was not questioned. Consequently, this interpretation is about the authority of the power-

simulacra of masculinity within the military, functioning as the policing mechanism for

gender itself and the hyperreality of gender category simulations.

Another example of gender performance (at the Harman trial this time) that can

be understood in terms of the masculinist code of the military was that of Captain

Takemura. Consider the female and soft-spoken Takemura versus the tough, rational, and hard edged civilian attorney Frank Spinner. Repeatedly, when Harman was described as a maternal caregiver it was by Takemura in a soft voice and through the use of photographs showing Harman doing service activities and making friends with Iraqi families and children. During closing arguments it was again Takemura who pled with the panel in her soft voice, sometimes so soft one could not be sure what she said, as she

167 motioned to maternal-Sabrina and the pictures from Iraq that showed Sabrina performing stereotypical feminine roles.

In the courtroom, it was a telling site that the only female attorney in the Harman trial was the one who elicited confessions of being afraid out of the male soldiers. In this way, Takemura wore the persona of the motherly caregiver who could empathize with fear, and who could make it a safe place to address this fear, even in the courtroom which

was itself doused plentifully with the military’s simulacra code of masculinity. I argue

that she could elicit these confessions because she understood the military code, and

inserted herself as a role acceptable with regards to this masculine symbolic narrative.

According to the code itself, the expression of fear is stereotypically understood as

unmasculine. Interestingly, Takemura elicited these confessions while wearing the

masculine uniform of the military. What is telling here is that none of the male soldiers

made these confessions to any of the male attorneys or the judge, and only to the mother

figure in the courtroom. Thus, the policing technique associated with gender and power

is evidenced in the form of a code that sets up power-simulacra as the self-reifying standard of the code itself, and namely masculinity. Interestingly, with regards to gendering Takemura, she is both feminine and masculine in this example, thereby showing gender constructions to be simulacra identities because of their constructed and fleeting nature of identification. Regarding the male soldiers who testified that they experienced fear, their claims do not match up with masculinity, and this is Baudrillard’s point about the simulacra nature of postmodern identity categories—they cannot signify themselves in any stable and meaningful way. Hence, masculinity as a category for identification is fleeting with regards to coherence.

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Consider the above example in terms of Baudrillard’s seduction. Male soldiers admitted under oath that they were scared to stop the abusiveness of other American soldiers towards the Iraqi detainees because they were in fear of retaliation. The male soldiers admitting to being scared in a military court shows the seduction of gender identity in that these males are shown to evidence both military masculinity and feminine fear. This was an important point in the courts-martial with regard to gender identity, as these admissions of fear were being made to the only female attorney associated with the trial, and to one who embodied femininity as she was wearing the skirt-version of the military uniform, or exhibiting the feminine persona-fascia while in military “drag.” As a further testimony of Takemura’s performance of femininity, everyday in court,

Takemura showed up in full make-up and with her hair immaculately styled. She even was concerned with re-applying make-up throughout the day, and visibly during court recesses. Takemura’s gender performance was thus the seduction of gender signs, as

Takemura displayed the signs of both masculine power and femininity in the courtroom as well as within the masculinist military. Likewise, the male soldiers who displayed fear in their testimonies evidenced both the masculinity associated with the military by virtue of being a soldier, but also the vulnerability of femininity in their claims of fear.

Takemura thus both displays the powerful masculine perspective while wearing her feminine persona identity, and the soldiers display femininity while also maintaining their roles as soldiers within the masculinist military.

This same use of gender simulacra was evident in the Harman trials, where

Harman was sold to the panel as a maternal caregiver. The archetype of “maternal

Sabrina” was vivid in the life sized photographs of Harman at Al Hilla, another military

169 compound in Iraq. Again, Harman was not seen as a soldier in the courtroom or in Iraq, and instead was repeatedly described as a caregiver, motherly individual, and even a social worker who cared about the experiences of Iraqi children.5 Instead of being an

equal soldier in the courtroom to other male soldiers, Harman was cast into the role of the

female symbolic narrative that defines women as caregivers and nurturers, even though she was a member of the masculinist military itself. Unlike Takemura, however, Harman was not inserted into the code of masculinity because she did not evidence the simulacra gender of masculinity. Instead, her identity as a soldier was stripped from her, and

possibly given her characterizations as a feminine soldier, which subverted masculinist

military ideals.

Perhaps this is why she, and other soldiers who faced courts-martial, obtained the

tattoo below depicting a rotten apple and their trial number. (Most of the “seven rotten-

apples” had tattoos of rotten apples on their bodies with their courts-martial number.) In

an attempt to claim an identity in a postmodern culture, where identity is fleeting, and in

a situation aimed at stripping important distinctions such as rank, job, and sense of worth,

these soldiers forever solidified not only their bonds to each other, but also their bond to

the military. Nonetheless, and per Baudrillard’s account of postmodern culture, these

identities are fleeting and ungrounded. However, given the permanence of a tattoo, I

argue that Harman embodied in a lasting way her identity as part of the masculinist

military, and despite her gendered descriptions in her courts-martial as a “feminine” and

“care giving” soldier. In this way, Harmon subverts her gendered characterizations in the

5 Interestingly, the job of social worker can be understood as a caregiver occupation and thus symbolic of femininity itself and allowable instances of femininity in the public sphere.

170 courts-martial, and reifies her allegiance to the masculinist and heterosexist “code” of the military as both a female and lesbian.

Figure 10, Harman Tattoo, “Rotten Apple # 6”

In conclusion, I have shown that what is considered theoretically “real” instructs

the formation of conceptual and organizational paradigms with regard to sex and gender

categories. I use the theories of both Baudrillard and Butler to discuss gender “realness,”

and argue that gender is a simulacra category for identity. Although the categories of

gender are simulacrum in their construction, there are real consequences for offending the

“code” of gender with regards to conceptualization. I analyze notions of gender

“realness” and postmodern identity with an analysis of the “metrosexual soldier,” and

apply Baudrillard’s notion of seduction to an analysis of Sabrina Harman and drag.

One way that Baudrillard and Butler are different is that Baudrillard thrives on

chaos, hyperreality, and simulacra, and sees a “sea” of circulating fictions as existing in

“reality.” For Baudrillard, this gendering of reality serves as reality itself—a hyperreality

171 indeed— as there is nothing apart from the simulations and free floating imaginary associated with this phantasm. It is this hyperreality that comes to function as the “real,”

or a simulacrum of reality, as signs have been substituted for the real itself and gender

identity in this case. Although for Baudrillard, there is no reality apart from the signs, he provides a way to discuss gender as hyperreal simulations that are self-referentially reified within their very definitions.

Additionally, Butler points out that gender is under surveillance and can only be understood with regard to its very own policing practices based in power itself. In this way, the performance of gender within the military can be understood with the concept of gender power-simulacra, where masculinity becomes the regulatory frame and policing technique for understanding legitimate citations of gender and value. Says Butler, gender is thus an act of “doing,” where the socially constructed standard is neither a representation of reality, nor a description of reality, as “reality” can only be found in its

simulation, or the code for surveillance itself. This means that “realness” is constructed

in the military through the conformity and surveillance of norms, such that the actual

space of the military is characterized in terms of this code. Apart from this code there is

no understanding of “realness,” and only the rule by simulacra of reality. Through the

performance of gender within the military, the “doing” of gender becomes a means to

naturalize the self in terms of the conformity to and surveillance of “masculinity.” Thus,

the performance of masculinity becomes a means for military cultural citation, value, and

signification.

Throughout this section, I have been concerned with gender and what was “real”

at Abu Ghraib and the associated courts-martial. At a private dinner, one soldier told me,

172 with tears in his eyes, that he pleaded with his wife to leave him and to take their children. This pleading was in an attempt to “protect” his family from his continued experiences of the “realities” of Abu Ghraib, which still violently run through his mind and dreams, manifesting themselves in physical outbursts and emotional distress.

Although this tearful confession was made by a male soldier who was still clearly feeling vulnerable given his experiences of Abu Ghraib, and was thus a violation of the code of military masculinity showing the ultimate simulacra nature of gender constructions, this confession evidences both the trauma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that were the “realities” of Abu Ghraib. Daily destruction, followed by post-traumatic stress disorder, is how soldiers described in interview and in testimony their experiences at Abu

Ghraib, as well as their current state of existence. There was chaos at Abu Ghraib, and this was real.

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6. REPRESENTATIONS OF ABU GHRAIB AND IMAGES OF POWER IN

RELATION TO GENDER

In accord with a position taken in the social sciences, I am in favor of a reflexive sociology, where individuals in the social world are able to interpret their experiences as their own and as within a context, rather than a scientist interpreting experience for them, and in the name of objectivity. In this way, I am interested in an understanding of the individual as effective in their existence—a theory of the individual as existing within objective social structures, but also retaining some agency with regards to interaction upon and within these structures themselves.

This theoretical position becomes important with regards to understanding cultural images and as commenting and critiquing the existing order of things. This approach to understanding society and culture yields an individual with agency who can critique existing social structures and depict unfairness within contexts. This active individual can thus recognize and critique oppressive power structures in an attempt to highlight cruelty and wrongdoings.

With regard to aesthetics, this is different from approaches that understand art in terms of only considerations of form, position, and structure, and from an “expert’s” point of view. According to a recent theory of culture, such as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital (using Kant’s ([1790]1988) approach to judging aesthetics), an individual is postulated who is not fully reflexive such that she can neither critique the deterministic manner of the social structures themselves, nor overcome these structures, resulting in a theory that does not account fully for the interaction of the individual within

174 social structures (Bourdieu 1979, Bourdieu 1980). The outcome of this kind of theorizing is that power structures are neither easily uncovered nor questioned. What is needed is a means for critique, exposure, and a way to comment on humanity itself.

Approaching society, culture, and art in a critical manner allows for the questioning of power, value, and authority—allowing for a critique of some contextual reality. Critical art allows for an evaluation of existing power structures, and an opportunity to change the world through its interpreted and exposed messages. Critical art is also a means for further informing the public about situations that are unfair, illegal, or unethical—it can give a voice to those who have been marginalized. In this section, I analyze power in relation to gender, homoerotic torture, and the depiction of women by interpreting representations associated with the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, from aesthetics to advertising.

6.1 Botero’s Abu Ghraib

Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s latest works depicts the prisoner abuse at

Abu Ghraib, where what some argue is experienced are the ties and implications of art and politics jointly. His “Abu Ghraib,” each piece simply numbered “Abu Ghraib” and marked 1-50, is a series of drawings and paintings (50 oils and sketches—170 paintings total) that depict pain, degradation, and torture in the style of his more popular work

(Ebony 2006).. Consider Botero’s thematic question of his Abu Ghraib instillation,

“What kind of society, what kind of country would visit such crimes against humanity?

Ask yourself, what am I doing to allow this to continue?”

This was not Botero’s first time painting controversial subjects, as he also has works that comment on Colombian death squads, massacres, car bombs, and

175 kidnappings, as well as the drug trade and drug wars in Colombia, and specifically pictures of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar being killed by police during a rooftop shootout. In 2006, Botero displayed works in Bogotá about Colombia’s 40-year-old guerilla conflict (Molinski 2005). Some of his works have been interpreted as critiques of bourgeois practices showing inflated egos through the use of inflated bodies.

Consider his 1971 piece called “Official Portrait of the Military Junta,” which was a satire of military regimes that presided over U.S. domination in Latin America, where a bloated dictator and his followers (including a Catholic Bishop) stand at attention and in full uniform, while flies buzzed around their heads give the sense of a regime that was

“polished on the outside, but rotten at the core” (Revolution Newspaper 2007). That said,

Botero’s works have a quality of biting social commentary that makes vivid and objective our most frightening subjective thoughts (Danto 2006). Additional artists and pieces that can be helpful for understanding how to interpret critical art are the following: the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco (see especially “Man of Fire” and its interpretation of social struggle), Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads” mural (which was removed from Rockefeller Center for its depiction of Lenin and communist overtones), Phillip

Guston’s images portraying his contempt of Richard M. Nixon, Goya’s pieces chronicling French atrocities in Spain (see especially “The Sleep of Reason Produces

Monsters: Plate 43 of The Caprices (Los Caprichos,” 1799), and Leon Golub’s

“Mercenaries and Interrogations” series depicting the effects of individual and institutional power. These pieces can all be read in a critical vein and as having a message. But what is Botero’s message?

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Figure 11, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #43 (Botero 2005, #43)

Naked, bound, blindfolded, bleeding, alone or in groups, the prisoners in Botero’s

Abu Ghraib pieces are enduring abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, initially depicted in the images leaked to the public in

2004. Botero’s images are not copies of the leaked photographs, but are interpretations of the abuse through given descriptions. “Paintings can make visible what is invisible,” says Botero, and he wanted to “recreate the atmosphere in the prison with scenes that were not scenes in the photos, to make some idea of the feeling, so that I could communicate some idea of the horrors that were going on…In a painting there is this concentration of emotion through time, leaving out everything that doesn’t concern the subject, and this makes the images in painting have special meaning” (Revolution

Newspaper 2007). For Botero, paintings restore the prisoners’ dignity and humanity without diminishing their experiences—their agony or the injustice of their situation.

Botero does these paintings through the manipulation of scale, color and form—things that are judged important in terms of the Kantian “pure aesthetic.” But he also makes a comment on these events through his art.

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Figure 12, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib” #56, (Botero 2005, #56)

Figure 13, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib”, 56b, (Botero 2005, #56b)

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Figure 14, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib”, #43b, (Botero 2005, #43b)

In Botero’s series, there is a picture of the naked human stacked pyramid, bound and hooded Iraqis behind prison bars, prisoners wearing women’s panties on their heads, forced into sexual and homoerotic positions (“Not far away, a blue-gloved hand yanks the hair of a terrified prisoner pushing him under a naked cellmate” (Kennicott 2006)), sodomy (broomsticks protrude from bleeding anuses), hooded men lie in their feces, bound by heavy ropes and blindfolded, suspended by body parts, tethered by all four limbs, mouths twisted into expressions of pain or agony, prodded into painful couplings, soiled by streams of urine from an unseen guard, threatened by guard dogs and tied to bars in painful positions.

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Figure 15, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” “bra and panties,” (Botero 2005)

Many of these poses are of supreme humiliation to Iraqi masculinity and cultural beliefs as well. Consider how Botero shows the juxtaposition of masculinity and

femininity in the above picture: the male body is hyper-muscular, and wearing a

complete red bra and panty set. This image is highly disturbing image that offends the

cultural sensibilities of Iraqi men. This could be Botero’s point about the torture of Iraqi

detainees at Abu Ghraib—humiliation was used as a weapon. There is the added

humiliation for Muslim religious beliefs that forbids nudity and males dressing as

females—the separating of feminine and masculine practices. Botero also depicts the

homoerotic torture that was used at Abu Ghraib against detainees, where detainees were

forced to simulate fellatio and roll around on the floor together naked, yet another means

for the devaluation of Iraqi cultural practices used as a weapon and for punishment.

Additionally, consider the use of dogs in detainee abuse as a means for setting up power

relations between the guards and the prisoners, where dogs are used to intimidate Iraqi

180 detainees through the fear of attack, and also through the exploitation of Iraqi cultural beliefs that dogs are unclean, filthy dirty creatures. These are all examples of using culture as a torture instrument against the detainees at Abu Ghraib.

The very use of the term ‘humiliated’ has a direct link to men being treated as women, and thereby offends the socially constructed ideals of masculinity, both Iraqi and

American. If we understand masculinity as opposed to femininity, these detainees were

“humiliated” because they were treated as women, and specifically because they were raped, sexually dominated, and degraded. Men who experience this sexual humiliation are thus treated as women because they experience the vulnerability that is usually associated with being a woman (Eisenstein 2004). Eisenstein (2004) states “The women

I met with during the Bosnian war whom had been forced into the rape camps there were not described as humiliated, but rather, as raped.” In this way, the detainees are socially constructed as effeminate, a subtext associated with narratives of homosexuality. One

“code” of masculinity reads that maleness is associated with masculinity, which is also associated with heterosexuality. Thus, the torture can also be read as homoerotic, where subjugation is identified through the narrative of homosexuality. In this way, power can be interpreted in terms of a gender stratified, misogynistic, and heterosexist system of power aimed specifically at punishing.

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Figure 16, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” “sodomy,” (Botero 2005)

Figure 17, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #6, (Botero 2004, #6)

Figure 18, Images from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” #45, (Botero 2005, #45)

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Sometimes in Botero’s work you can see the boot or fist of a tormentor jutting into the picture. However, there are no overt signs of American flags or uniforms, and many times the guards are represented offstage and by a boot kicking an inmate, a club beating an unprotected head, a guard urinating on a prisoner, or a hand urging on an attack dog. Because of this, it seems that Botero is focused on the abuse that the detainees experienced, and not specifically a narrative of American soldiers. Says one interpreter of the art “The soldiers are part of the system—unseen jailers following commands” (Kennicott 2006). The use of the word “unseen” implies that soldiers can be understood as cogs in a machine, where the jailers become nondescript and fade into the background. However, what is important is that actual soldiers committed these abuses, and that these actions were not their unique conceptions, as they were following orders and responding to other parts of the machine itself.

Interestingly, Sontag (2004) claims that it is rare indeed to see photographs of abuse where the abusers are pictured alongside the abused. She links the photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib with the photographs of black victims who had been lynched taken between the 1880’s and 1930’s, where white men are shown grinning beneath the mutilated body of a black male or female victim. It is possible that Botero is using the historical approach of narration, where abusers are not shown, and where the image concentrates on the abused solely. However, these are all only speculations and interpretations about Botero’s intended meanings.

Consider Botero’s use of “neutral” sensual bodies in his work as an argument that his Abu Ghraib is not about critique. The curvy and puffy features of the individuals in

Botero’s Abu Ghraib series are reminiscent of his other works where his figures are

183 described as “folk-inspired” (Kennicott 2006). He uses these “tubby individuals” as essentially neutral objects that can be fit into multiple purposes and situations, and seemingly create the buffer zone sometimes necessary for understanding this (and other) terrifying situations. It can be argued that since all individuals depicted in Botero’s Abu

Ghraib have similar physical attributes, the soldiers and prisoner bodies can be read as

“interchangeable,” and perhaps this is his point about war and anguish—suffering

happens to all who are involved. Botero comments on these “puffy” figures by saying

that “ these puffed-up personalities are being puffed to give them sensuality…In art, as

long as you have ideas and think, you are bound to deform nature. Art is deformation.

There are no works of art that are truly realistic” (Revolution Newspaper 2007). In this

way, Botero can be interpreted as depicting emotionality and not any one person’s reality,

as corporeal signification is not the identification of specific individuals, but of the

anthropomorphic expressiveness associated with a location itself. Using this

interpretation of Botero’s Abu Ghraib, it seems that Botero’s work is not about critique,

but about giving the prisoners sensuality for his own artistic motives. The reality of Abu

Ghraib is that most of the prisoners were emaciated and hungry, and there wasn’t enough

food for anyone there, including the American soldiers.

6.2 Botero and the Suffering of Women

Botero claims that since the prison is slated for demolition, his paintings and

drawings will be a reminder of what happened there, “a catalog of dark memories, a

compendium of outrages captured in a long-established people’s vernacular, as a hedge

against obfuscation and oblivion” (Revolution Newspaper 2007). In this way, I see him

again as making appropriate artistic and humanistic statements.

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Botero adamantly denies that his art is exactly like Diego Rivera’s and other

Marxist artists who were trying to change society. For Botero, the message is this: “The

force of art is the length of time it speaks to people. Art is permanent accusation”

(Freedberg 2007), and in this case Botero can be interpreted as providing an “accusation”

and representation of mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of American soldiers. This

can be interpreted as an intentional humanistic statement in that it is true that Botero is

making a timeless accusation of torture. Botero was even quoted in an interview as saying “I am increasingly sensitive to injustice, which makes my blood boil, and these paintings were born by the anger provoked by this horror” (Klein 2006).

Maybe, as Botero claims, these pictures are a testimony to the events that took place at Abu Ghraib. Yet, I am reminded of the report made by the International

Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that estimated that from some military officers that

“between 70 and 80 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.” What is more, the notion of “prisoner” might suggest that these incarcerated individuals had rights in accordance with international law and were covered by these laws in regard to their treatment. Botero’s art forces us to remember these events of injustice. Says Botero, “Because I thought this was an enormous violation of human rights and the United States has been a model of compassion and a model of human rights and they are doing something like this violation, It was the biggest damage ever to this country’s image….I gave testimony of what happened. I could not stay silent” (Revolution Newspaper 2007). Here Botero is being political. Says Botero,

“These paintings are anti-humanity…an artist expresses himself to communicate…To give a moment of reflection and stay in the mind of the people. That is the function of art

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I believe” (Revolution Newspaper 2007). Says Danto in The Nation, “We knew that Abu

Ghraib prisoners were suffering, but we did not feel that suffering as ours” (Danto 2006).

Botero makes us feel this suffering, and thus does more than just testify to events, but forces the realization of human rights violations—thus possibly culminating in the rallying for political change itself.

Nonetheless, I argue that Botero’s work leaves out a “testimony” of two specific kinds of suffering associated with the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. First, Botero does not fully address the suffering of the women and children who were detained at Abu

Ghraib, and specifically the women who were raped at the prison. Although Botero does

feature two drawings of women whose hands are bound and who are blindfolded, he does

not testify to either the rape of women or the fact that children were held at Abu Ghraib.

Interestingly, there are only two sketches of Botero’s that depict women, and these two sketches are only two among 170

Second, Botero’s work does not depict the women charged and found guilty of detainee abuse, namely Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman, two of the “rotten apples.” To not make these women central to his work seems to violate his stated aims of remembering what happened at Abu Ghraib.

If “Art is permanent accusation” as Botero states, then one charge that Botero does not make central in his art is the charge of unfairness that women experienced at

Abu Ghraib. It was unfair, and also illegal under the Geneva Conventions and other legal

agreements that the U.S. is signatory, to detain women and children as bargaining chips

for their male family member’s surrender. These women and children had not committed

any crime, were not charged with any crime, and were not a threat to the U.S. occupation.

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This fact was brought out in trial and seemingly overlooked as an important detail regarding the detention of women and children at the prison. Some females were being forced to undress in front of male guards, an act that is seen as particularly demeaning in conservative Muslim culture. This fact is made clear in Botero’s two sketches dealing with women, as both pieces show a naked female detainee, blindfolded and with her hands bound. (Again, however, these are two minor sketches compared to the 50 wall frescoes and 118 other sketches of abuse.)

Other women have told human rights workers that they have been beaten, tortured, and isolated (Rosen 2006). This behavior was reported by the Pentagon in the internal Army report by Army Major General Taguba, and specifically that soldiers had videotaped and photographed naked female detainees at Abu Ghraib, with at least one

Iraqi woman assumedly forced at gunpoint to show her breast. Again, this is torture that uses culture as a weapon, where actual people are not being valued for their humanity, and where their cultural beliefs and practices are being used against them as punishment and threat.

Additionally, rape has been reported at Abu Ghraib, a power tactic that is unfair in every way, as it results in the raw using of force in taking something that belongs to another—namely dignity and body. Says Rosen (2006) “If acts of ritual humiliation could be used to ‘soften up’ men, then the rape of female detainees is hardly unimaginable.” I argue that this is a form of sexual terrorism and abuse. Nonetheless, there is a long history of viewing women as the spoils of war. Says Amal Kadham

Swadi, an Iraqi attorney representing women detainees, she believes that sexualized violence and abuse committed by U.S. soldiers against female prisoners goes far beyond

187 a few isolated cases (Shumway 2004). In some cases, as in the case with an Iraqi female prisoner named Noor, some of the females raped are getting pregnant (Shumway 2004).

What is worse, few women in Muslim cultures will come forward with reports of being raped since they know that rape survivors are often treated with shame and are sometimes killed in an attempt to preserve family honor through a practice called “honor killing.” A 2005 Amnesty International Report stated that there is a stigma attached to

Iraqi women who are raped, thereby assumedly making the number of rapes far

underreported. In fact, the British Guardian (May 20, 2004) reported that one female

prisoner urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail at Abu Ghraib in order to spare the

[pregnant] women further shame. Nonetheless, Middle East Online has reported that three young rural women from the Sunni Muslim region of Al-Anbar, west of Baghdad,

had been killed by their families after coming out of Abu Ghraib prison pregnant

(Shumway 2004). The Taguba report also sites a case of rape at Abu Ghraib prison,

although the report describes the incident as a male prison guard “having sex” with a

female detainee. The military’s chief spokesperson, Brigadier Mark Kimmitt, when

asked about rapes at Abu Ghraib, commented that the department running the prisons was

“unaware of any such reports at Abu Ghraib” (Shumway 2004). The military, as of yet,

has not charged any soldiers for a specific case of sexual assault or sexual abuse

involving a detainee. Nonetheless, Botero provides few images of women in his

collection on Abu Ghraib, and does not show the plethora of abuses that women faced at

Abu Ghraib.

Lastly, the unfairness associated with England and Harman is that they were two

of the low ranking soldiers who were found guilty of detainee abuse, and it was argued in

188 court that they acted in their own accord. In fact, Eisenstein (2004) calls these women

“gender decoys,” as through their participation in detainee abuse they create confusion with regard to gender in that it is usually the female who is abused. This is a horrendous injustice to characterize these reservist soldiers as acting apart from the orders of those higher up, and one that is especially unfair since it came out in their courts-martial that neither of these women actually physically abused any of the detainees. (There was,

however, one testimony that stated that England stepped on detainee’s fingers and toes,

but many others that negated it.) Instead, these women are being vilified because they

have transgressed the roles still often expressed of women—they have betrayed their sex/gender role of caregiver, passive, and concerned with well-being.

Accordingly, Eisenstein (2004) is correct about the following: a masculinist and racialized gender politics does exist within the military and can be understood in terms of a rhetoric associated with the misogyny of building empire. This is a neocolonial interpretation that can shed light on the power structures operating at Abu Ghraib, and those especially concerning women who wear the masculinist uniform of the military.

Consider the 112 reports of sexual misconduct filed by U.S. women soldiers in Iraq,

Kuwait, and Afghanistan, for the years between 2002-2004 (Schmitt 2004). Indeed, 30% of female veterans report experiences rape or attempted rape during their service (Hoppen

2007). These are examples of how masculinist power operates within the military

through the use of power, or sexual terrorism itself, and against our own soldiers as well

as against detainees in our care (Schmitt 2004).

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Figure 19, Lynndie England Leash Photo, (www.salon.com)

In a discussion at UC Berkeley, where Botero’s work was exhibited in the spring

of 2007, there was a difference of opinion about the interpretation of Botero’s work.

History professor Thomas Laqueur highlighted that Botero does not depict any gendered messages about the abuse that were evident in the leaked photographs, where troubles might arise at imagining a woman as a violent torturer. Here Laqueur is referring to the

image of Lynndie England with a belt tied around a prisoner’s neck after Graner had

dragged the detainee out of a cell, as this is the photograph that is projected on the screen

behind him. Instead, masculinist images showed brutality and sexual humiliation of

prisoners in a “fresco-like smoothness” that allows the viewers the ability to ethically

engage with Botero’s work (Moody 2007).

Consider again Botero’s thematic question of his 2007 Abu Ghraib instillation,

“What kind of society, what kind of country would visit such crimes against humanity?

Ask yourself, what am I doing to allow this to continue?” The individual is invited to

reflect about their ability to affect world events and attitudes, or their connections to

overarching social structures that allow for these events and ideologies. The social

subject is thus postulated as an active member of the social structure, both in terms of the

190 social structure and as able to reflect upon this structure in order to critique. This interpretation is about society in general, and humanity specifically.

I, like Laqueur at the Berkeley 2007 conference on Botero, question why there are no women visible in Botero’s paintings. After all, real actual women were harmed at Abu

Ghraib, including Iraqi women and children who were detained, as well as Iraqi women who were sexually abused and even raped. American military women, such as Harman,

England, and Karpinski, were harmed in terms of their image and “front-stage” personas.

Additionally, England’s and Harman’s “harm” of serving jail sentences for crimes ordered by those higher-up the chain of command effected not only their own lives, but

also the lives of those who cared for them, and especially England’s newborn son Carter.

But what about restoring the dignity of women who were prisoners at Abu

Ghraib? If this is Botero’s intent, why are there no women in Botero’s Abu Ghraib art?

What does this say about the women of Abu Ghraib? What does this say about the image of women in war and associated with the military? Are they non-existent given the masculinist military system in that they are like a set of mathematical undefineds? Why are women’s voices and perspectives not imagined and realized in Botero’s art? Maybe

Botero is not including women in his depictions of Abu Ghraib as a protest of sorts,

meaning Botero is objecting to the vilification of England, Harman, and Karpinski in the

media and around the world. But the larger question still remains: How can Botero’s

exclusion of women from this series of his art be understood?

In the feminist publication, Off Our Backs (Tarrant 2004), they ask the question

“Who is accountable for the abuse at Abu Ghraib?” The story points out that the more

that we focus on England and the photo of the leash, the less likely we are to dig deeper

191 to find out the answers to questions such as: Who was in charge? Where are they now?

Will they ever be held accountable? I agree with that. To some extent it’s also true of

Botero’s paintings.

The only way to get at these questions regarding detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib is

to examine everything that was said at the trials, and the media did not cover all of it.

This is what I mean by unfair. England initially faced 19 charges of detainee abuse and

indecent acts, with a maximum of 28 years in military prison as a sentence. But

England’s actions, as well as the prisoner abuse, did not happen in a vacuum. Off Our

Backs (Tarrant 2004) printed the following: “The prisoner abuse is part and parcel of

gender politics run amok. And, the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib is an extreme

manifestation of everyday pornography.”

Now, Botero did not paint pornographic images such as those that are used for

sexual arousal; however, taken out of context, his images do have a certain sadistic and

masochistic sentiment about them. But, the point about Botero’s images is that they can

be read as a text of “pornography” in that objectification and mistreatment of people who

we believe have less value than we do takes place in some pornography. This is the point

that is made in an article in the feminist journal Off Our Backs, where it is argued that

pornography usually subjugates women, yet in this case it is happening to men and

women of a different culture—“those with brown-skin” (Tarrant 2004). This makes clear

that in addition to gender, there is a race politic that can be used to understand some of

the abuse during this war—an us/them, in-group/out-group rhetoric. Says Eisenstein

(2004) “War almost always destroys the very sense of humanity that allows you to see yourself in another, to see your connection with another instead of their difference from

192 you. Brutality reflects this process of seeing and then not seeing another’s humanity”

(Eisenstein 2004). In addition, Jane Caputi, reminds us that “pornography is an everyday narrative underlying not only sexism, but also militarism” (Tarrant 2004). This, in part, can explain the unfairness regarding the rapes at Abu Ghraib. It might thus be possible that the historical cultural narrative of sexism and racism migrated from our American culture, all of the way to Iraq, where men, women, and children have become objects of pornographic and objectifying treatment.6 The Off Our Backs (Tarrant 2004) article

even goes so far as to claim that “Lynndie England is being punished for taking part in

exactly what the culture of militarism fosters”—namely racism and sexism (Tarrant

2004). Although during the England courts-martial there was no agreed upon account of

her physically abusing prisoners, the photographs do show humiliations and perceived

abuse, thereby vilifying England on the world’s stage. In this way, England exhibits

racism and subjugation through the images that depict her smiling and pointing to a

naked Iraqi male’s genitals and laughing, a clear example of power over the “other.”

Consequently, the addition of the following—Iraqi women in contexts they

experienced at Abu Ghraib, American women’s experiences at Abu Ghraib, and Iraqi

children— to Botero’s collection might have served to show the suffering of these groups

of individuals in terms of humiliation, rape, racism, and sexism.

However, there is no certain way to predict an artist’s, photograph’s, or any other

representation’s impact in a society based on media spin and simulacra.

6 Interestingly, and using this same reading of abuse as “pornography,” REM lead singer Michael Stipe and director Josh Fox are producing a film entitled “Memorial Day” that provides an analysis of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison read through the lens of pornography, where what is being provided in the film is a commentary on our culture’s relationship to pornography and violence (Channing 2006).

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6.3 Interpretations of Abu Ghraib Images

Botero’s work shows a similarity between the photographic images of shackled prisoners in poses of the cross that can be compared to images of Christian martyrs.

Imagine the resemblance between Botero’s shackled and brutalized prisoners and a naked

Jesus hanging on a cross. What is more, some of the soldiers seem to have intended this.

Likewise, the cage-like iron grids of the prison bars and cells evoke images of the

Spanish Inquisition. Additionally, snarling dogs that are positioned inches away from prisoner faces can be read as illustrating Dante’s Inferno. These are just a few ways that

Botero’s work can be read as deferring to a narrative.

Figure 20, 11:01 p.m., Nov. 4, 2003. Detainee with bag over head, standing on box with wires attached, (www.salon.com)

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Figure 21, 12:38 a.m., Oct. 18, 2003. Detainee cuffed to the entrance of the wing. Photo taken from the second tier, Abu Ghraib. (www.salon.com)

Figure 22, Image from Botero’s “Abu Ghraib,” second analysis of “bra and panties”, (Botero 2005)

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Additionally, the following images were taken by photographer Antonin

Kratochvil, a Czech refugee who fled to the United States and whose father was tortured and humiliated in a Stalinist labor camp. Following in the footsteps of Botero,

Kratochvil has recreated the humiliation suffered by naked, bound and hooded Iraqis in his project called “Homage to Abu Ghraib.” Although the below images can be read as similar to those interpreted under the narrative of martyr, not all of his images have cross-like poses. Like Botero, Kratochvil says his intent is to emblazon the images upon the consciousness of the world. This project is critical in that it provides a message about the experiences of detainees at Abu Ghraib.

First, the images are blurry, possibly mimicking the feeling confusion associated with the uncertainty of being hooded, as well as the perplexity of simply being a prisoner at Abu Ghraib, and especially since most of the detainees were either completely innocent or common criminals, yet were being treated as terrorists. An additional explanation for the blurry images is that prisoners are not identified by name or face at

Abu Ghraib, and exist only in terms of the gendered and homoerotic abuse they experiences as objects. Hence, there is no need give names or faces to those who we objectify, and in this way the image speaks to the power Americans hold over their prisoner-objects. Second, the image illustrates the loneliness and isolation that one must have felt at being a prisoner or guard at Abu Ghraib, as one witness stated in the Harmon case regarding his experiences at Abu Ghraib—“we felt forgotten at Abu Ghraib.”

Lastly, the images testify to the abuse and humiliation that detainees experienced while

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in the custody of the United States. The bodies are naked, there is a large dog in the background, and the rope looks like a noose. These are all images of a horror film set; however, these are simulacra images of Abu Ghraib, yet they speak directly to the reality of Abu Ghraib experiences.

Figure 23, Photograph #1 by Antonin Kratochvil in his collection entitled “A Homage to Abu Ghraib,” (http://www.viiphoto.com/detail-story3.php?news_id=529)

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Figure 24, Photograph #2 by Antonin Kratochvil in his collection entitled “A Homage to Abu Ghraib,” (http://www.viiphoto.com/detail-story3.php?news_id=529)

Sontag (2004) claims that “Shock and awe were what our military promised the

Iraqis. And shock and the awful are what these photographs announce to the world that the Americans have delivered: a pattern of criminal behavior in open contempt of international humanitarian conventions.” The pieces considered in this section point out the reality of how detainees were treated under the American occupation of Iraq, and specifically at Abu Ghraib prison. These images bear witness to the stories of the detainees specifically and show their horrendous existence at Abu Ghraib and their sometimes-illegal treatment by U.S. soldiers. This was Botero’s stated goal, that of telling the story and providing the actuality that the detainee at Abu Ghraib was faced

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with daily. These artists provide for us alternative explanations and insights into the reality of Abu Ghraib.

6.4 Fashionable Torture and the “Use-Value” of Women

For decades, women have been the targets of advertising and marketing ploys that state the same and continual message, namely that women are not good enough the way they are. Instead, women should want to be thinner, have larger breasts, look younger, be sexual virgins, etc. It is not surprising, thus, when cultural images become a part of the fashion industry, as this is an industry that seemingly depends on women for its very existence. Sometimes, messages are commodified such that they are used to sell products. Some of these commodified messages tell women about their specific gender roles: how to be good mothers, what their children want, what to clean with, what beauty products they should use, what they should look like, what they should drive, what to serve their family to eat, etc. These messages have typically been encoded in advertising schema, and have been critically addressed by feminists and media studies alike.

However, the images of Abu Ghraib have been used recently as a means to sell consumer products. In Steven Meisel’s 2006 fashion photographs and advertising campaign, women were used as objects to “take the pornography of terror to another extreme” (Bourke 2006). Consider the below photograph.

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Figure 25, The photo-essay "State of Emergency" (#1) by Steven Meisel, September '06 issue of Vogue Italia, (http://www.style.it/cont/home-style/home-style.asp)

In this “photo-essay” on fashion, a woman is being detained by two security guards who provide the illustration of violence in the photo. The woman has her legs seductively spread and is no doubt wearing a designer haut-couture dress. She looks like a mannequin that has been put into a painful pose, and is a representation of the idealized feminine symbolic. Her body is perfect, her hair styled flawelessly, her shoes pristinely shine—all while being forced to the ground, and despite her grimace. This image can be understood in terms of the phallic economy of masculinity, where violence, humiliation, force, and power can be read as erotic possibility (Bourke 2006). Specifically, however, this image is based on the terror narrative of Abu Ghraib, the appropriation of fear and the panic imaginary associated with the detainee abuse in Iraq, and larger narratives of war and security—and all used to sell products. The use of women here however tells a story as to their submission as (sometimes literally) beneath men.

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Figure 26, The photo-essay "State of Emergency" (#2) by Steven Meisel, September '06 issue of Vogue Italia, (http://www.style.it/cont/home-style/home-style.asp)

Consider the above image. In this image, a female is being held captive by a guard dog and two gloved guards with billy clubs. The female’s knees are apart, and her shirt unbuttoned almost to her waist. Strangely, she is not terrified of the barking and spitting dog that angrily makes clear that she is supposed to remain perfectly still. She looks upwards with large dark eyes and charcoaled circled features. She looks almost alluring at best, and more like a scared little girl about to confess to stealing candy instead of the “criminal” she seemingly intends to represent, and who she is also made out to be given the situation. Maybe she is not scared of the snarling dog because she knows that she is valuable in terms of her image, as her use-value is directly attached to this image itself. Maybe she knows that the dog is there, like the phallus, to keep her in line with traditional power narratives of masculinity, where she, the woman, is shown as

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subordinate. If this is the translation, one might assume that she is compliant and complacent with her characterization.

Again, this image can be read and interpreted according to the code associated with the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, and its associated narrative of military masculinity. Says Bourke (2006) “The photographs endorse the very taboos they violate.” In this way, both advertisements normalize the abuse at Abu Ghraib, as these images take their inspiration from these abuses themselves, where images of torture have been translated into consumable products. Thus, our cultural images of war provides the latest fashionista with a raison d'être to indulge in the season’s style—that of phallic power, humiliation, and torture. Additionally, the image further solidifies the long- standing relationship between the sexes in our patriarchal culture, where what is valued is the masculine symbolic, and especially within military power narratives. In these power narratives, as I have argued elsewhere, the military is equated with the macho soldier who has authority, control, and supreme rule with regards to politics of the armed services economy of value inscription.

Even so, it can be argued that these photographs, and many other advertising images, provide a statement as to the value of women in society, where women themselves are the latest “style” for expenditure, and where what is being utilized are actual women. Lately, I have been thinking about the two different kinds of value women have associated with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. With regards to the advertisements, women have a “use-value” as objects to be tortured; With regard to the actual events at Abu Ghraib, women have a “use-value” as objects for torture. In both

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cases, they also have the use-value of being witnesses to torture, and thereby adding to the humiliation and degraded sexuality of the scene

This argument comes directly in theory from feminist theorist’s Luce Irigaray’s claims in “Women on the Market,” namely that women can be understood as exchangeable commodities (used, consumed, and circulated) within patriarchal societies

(Irigaray 1985b; Irigaray 1985c). In the advertising images discussed above, women are the token prisoner commodity par excellence, and thus have value as a subordinate and in terms of her identity as “other” in reference to the metaphysical position of the male as subject (Irigaray 1985; Irigaray 1985b). When referring to “the exchange of women,”

I establish women as bartering objects, and stripped of power within society. Men occupy the role of the producer-subjects and agents of exchange, while women are the exploited image-commodities being sold. It is in this way that Irigaray argues that our society continually “refers back to men” as the givers and deciders of women’s value, both in the way that women value themselves and in the way that women are valuable in terms of exchange (Irigaray 1985). In these advertisements, male power is exemplified directly through force, and female power through compliance, with women’s images functioning as the exchangeable value/good, where supplemental value is added to the initial item advertised.

Considering again both advertisements, women are used to sell an actual product, and are shown in situations of abuse, thereby providing further support for the claim that they are exchanged for the actual commodity-image itself. Women are thus used as the means to convey the message of the advertiser, albeit through the use of a culturally

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recent and relevant torture narrative. “Torture has not only become normalized, it has been integrated into one of the most glamorous forms of consumer culture—high fashion. In our current moral state of emergency, torture imagery has become fashionable” (Bourke 2006). In addition, this juxtaposition of women as submissive and controlled by men, the cultural narrative of gender oppression is realized in image and print. At Abu Ghraib, women were used to “sell” the product of torture, in order to please Graner in England’s case, and to please the other male soldiers in Harman’s case.

This discussion of the value of women becomes additionally important when considering the “use-value” of woman as functioning as objects for torture, or as actual

“interrogation techniques” at Abu Ghraib, in both thing and strategy. Women have use- value in that their presence during detainee interrogation violates the Iraqi cultural standards of acceptable Muslim male/female social distancing, where what is problematic is that women are watching and are present witnesses of the torture of Iraqis

(nakedness, homosexual torture tactics, as well as Iraqi masculine power as dominated by American masculine power). Women’s gaze upon these events, which show men in a powerless, helpless, and incapacitated state, functions as a testament to weakness and as a cultural affront to understandings of Iraqi masculinity. In this way, women are used as actual torture techniques themselves. Another example of the use-value of women at

Abu Ghraib exploits Iraqi women as useful “bait” for their already-presumed-guilty male family members or husbands, and as an evocation for these men to turn themselves over to American authorities. In this way, the women in the advertisements, the American female soldiers, and the Iraqi female detainees at Abu Ghraib have all similarly been

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inscribed with a use-value by men, where all categories of women are commensurately marked with a value tag as “woman prisoner.” The women in the advertisements show their value as subordinate as a means to sell a commodity-image, and thus a product itself. For the American female soldiers, their value is that of a prisoner object of war in that their worth is in their objectification for torture purposes among and for the benefit of their male military counterparts. Considering the Iraqi women who were detained at Abu Ghraib, their value lies in their ability to lure in their male family members for detention. In this way, a cultural text is constructed that defines woman as having the status of subordinate “prisoner” in a relation to men and the military constructions of masculine soldier.

Hence, value, recognition, and reward are understood in patriarchal societies based upon the society’s male-centered ordering, which in turn represents the needs, wants and desires of men. Consequently, women have value in that they serve as objects in relations among men. For these reasons, women’s exchange value is a socially constructed representation of masculine needs, wants, and desires. This illustrates

Irigaray’s claim that women “mirror” masculine values in themselves, and between each other, as a result of the value inscription process. That is, the male designated “plus value,” or supplemental value, is mirrored in women in that it becomes a standard of value between women and as a result of man’s labor, thus making the commodities

(women) commensurate. Women in this system of value are equal commodities in that they, as commodities, equally “mirror” male desire. This, I argue, is yet another reason that the few women at Abu Ghraib (England, Harman, and Karpinsky) have themselves

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specifically been targeted and vilified with regard to prisoner abuse—they are commensurate in their “scapegoat” status.

It cannot be stressed enough that women’s social roles have been constructed in accordance with male desire and to justify a masculine position of power. That said, it is frequently argued that women’s prescribed social roles reflect a system based in masculine essentialism – a system constructed with the masculine perspective as its norm and aimed at benefiting and representing the desires of the binary half that enjoy the position of power, namely men.

Considering the homoerotic torture of men at Abu Ghraib, women (both Iraqi and American soldiers) had a further “use-value” in their status as “women” in that the detainee abuse orchestrated and executed by men was carried out in the full view of the female detainees located in Tier 1B (as this tier looked down on the first floor common area where the abuse took place), and also in front of female soldiers. In this way, the abuse itself can be interpreted as a means of garnering respect and esteem from other males at the prison (a flexing of the masculine-military-muscle of sorts), especially since the abuse was done in full view of women. Additionally, however, this abuse can be interpreted as attempts at obtaining approval from other men by impressing them with power—a metaphoric “gay cruising” ritual. The homoerotic torture can thus be read as a practice of impressing other men through actual homosexual acts. Other abuse that was not sexual in nature can be interpreted as acts aimed at achieving higher status in other men’s significations, as this interpretation is about cultural masculinity and the significance of relations between and among men. This can be also applied to Veblen’s

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([1899]1994; Veblen 2003) notion of conspicuousness as a means to garner social status and esteem, and possibly the conspicuous consumption of masculinity through torture- bonding rituals themselves.7

In his book, The Rebel (1951), Albert Camus asked the question of how it is possible to live in a world in which we know that women and children are being tortured. Camus neither asked this question in order to take sides, nor was he concerned with which military regime was better or more moral than the other. Instead Camus was asking how we can face the human condition in our everyday lives knowing that such atrocities exist.

One answer to Camus’ question is through an understanding of the individual as effective in their existence—a theory of the individual as existing within objective social structures, but also retaining some of the existential sensibilities of “effectiveness” upon these social structures. I am arguing for a position that sees the individual as effectively able to interact with these social structures. Thus, what is needed for a fully reflexive sociology is a way for the active social agent to critique the existing social structures in an attempt to recognize power differentials in order to rectify these oppressions.

7 This behavior has described as a socio-cultural practice by Irigaray (1985) with her term hom(m)osexual, as she provides a Marxist characterization of male social interaction based on male desire as the paradigm for understanding value. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1985) claims this desire between men is based on “homosocial” desire. Sedgwick understands the term ‘homosocial’ to denote social bonds between persons of the same sex or men’s relations with other men, and understands the term ‘homosexual’ to be a more specific term within men’s social relations that denotes genital desire between same sex individuals. The notion of “homosocial” can be used to describe masculinist attitudes that are aimed at domination, and especially of women. In this manner, the abuse of detainees by men can also signify male dominance over women in a patriarchal society through a consideration of actual physical power and threat. The prisoner abuse took place in full view of women and by men, where masculine physical power can be made sense of in terms of both male status over women, and also male physical power over women.

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Specifically, this is what my attempt in this section concerning image interpretation is about—showing that images can be critical about social phenomena, where the artist and their aesthetic representations critically address and challenge existing power structures through their work and interpretations of their projects by others. Art that is critical in nature is important in that it provides a testimony and judicious comment regarding the existing order of things. Additionally, art that is interpreted as having a message about humanity is important to consider as it is a testimony about compassion and civilization. These approaches to understanding society, culture, and aesthetics yields an active individual who can critique existing social structures and depict unfairness within contexts. This active individual can thus recognize and critique oppressive power structures in an attempt to highlight, inform, and possibly rectify malice and brutality—thereby making the significance endless.

Nonetheless, not all of the images discussed here are critical. Instead, advertising has appropriated cultural images of abuse to sell products, and this has a consequence for women in terms of value. In the advertising images, power is seen in relation to gender such that women are shown to have a secondary status within patriarchal culture—their use-value is that of objects for torture, objects to be tortured, commodified objects, and objects of male desire.

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7. CONCLUSIONS

I am concerned with the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, and I am driven to find explanations for this abuse. Through the use of a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in

Iraq by American forces, I have provided an examination of many issues surrounding this abuse using gender as a lens for analysis. I analyze the photographs of this abuse, an analysis of the courts-martial surrounding the “rotten apples” punished for this abuse, a discussion of the body associated with punishment and torture, and also as marked in ways of identification, and an assessment of the varied representations regarding Abu

Ghraib prison. My “inside dopester” status at the trials provides a particularly important position from which to analyze these events. In addition, and through the use of participant-observation of two trials, interaction with soldiers and officers, and analysis of both documents pertaining to the trial as well as analysis of the photographs of abuse themselves, using gender as a foci I have been able to weave an account of explanation itself.

Gender as a focus of analysis has become increasingly important in the social sciences and has been used to make sense of many different social phenomena. Gender as a social construction has a cultural context, where definitions of “masculinity” and

“femininity” emerge with regards to this context. Critical analysis of gender categories evidence that sex, gender, and sexuality are distinct categories themselves; yet,

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frequently, stereotypical understandings of gender link these categories and dictate a

“code” for gender. Within this “code,” what it means to be male is tied conceptually to both masculinity and heterosexuality. In this way, the social construction of gender thus delineates the boundaries for both “masculinity” and “femininity,” where gender categories are understood with regard to power or a “code” in their constructions. One consequence of this “code” is that socially constructed systems of gender “reality” come to be understood in terms of power, where those who have power are able to dictate the standards of gender “realness” and value. Social control is established in terms of this kind of inequitable socially constructed reality, thereby allowing the generated norms, taboos, expectations, social roles, etc., to be understood in terms of this privileged viewpoint.

One example of masculine bias in our culture is social theory’s masculine universal voice. In this project, I have argued that one way American society has been

“gendered” is through the study of men in social experiments to the exclusion of women in these situations. This is evident in Zimbardo’s prison study and its non-application to the realities of Abu Ghraib and the surrounding courts-martial. Using gender as a tool for analysis, it is possible to provide a richer understanding of the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Additionally, I have provided an analysis of the chaos associated with Abu

Ghraib prison and how this chaos does not fit into modernist narratives of rationality and order, where I equate order and rationality with the masculine symbolic code. In this way, I described the illusory order and actual chaos at Abu Ghraib as gendered. I have also discussed how Foucault’s identification of the body as the principal target of power

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actually provides a kind of social control over the prisoners’ bodies and souls/minds at

Abu Ghraib, and especially given the gendered and associated sexualized nature of this torture, and the associated violation of Iraqi cultural constructions of masculinity.

Moreover, gender as a tool for analysis shows that the Parsonian distinction between instrumental and expressive roles served a multitude of functions simultaneously, and especially given the masculinist code of the military. Applying

Parsons’ notion of gender roles to an analysis of the following, I am able to provide a gendered analysis of these social phenomena: my experiences in defense council meetings and in the courtroom, the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, an analysis of Sabrina Harman as a “maternal caregiver,” and an analysis of Instrumental and Expressive torture. However, I move beyond Parsons, and argue that given the complex social situations at Abu Ghraib, Parsons’ notions of “instrumental” and

“expressive” are limited with regard to their explanatory power in the following situations: when expressive means were linked to instrumental ends; expressiveness towards superiors as a means to an ends; and expressive fear in male soldiers. In general, Parsons accounts for the rigid stereotypes of the military with regard to male and female roles. But Parsons does not account for the fact that males can be expressive, females can be instrumental, and above all, that expressive functions can themselves be

“instrumental” in terms of power relationships.

Also using gender as a tool for analysis, I have analyzed what was “real” and what was “simulacra” about gender at Abu Ghraib prison and at the trials. I provide a discussion of how what is considered theoretically "real" instructs the formation of

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conceptual and organizational paradigms, and especially categories for thinking about sex and gender. Both Baudrillard and Butler have theories of gender “realness,” and I consider both theories when describing the categories of gender as simulacrum in their construction, but real in their consequences. I have shown that roles within the military have been gendered in their constructions in terms of the code of normative gender realness, and show how individuals and actions both reify and subvert these gendered constructions, thereby questioning the “realness” of these constructions. I have provided an analysis of the gendered construction of the military as a simulacra of masculinity, how military uniforms give bodies legitimate expression while also policing gender according to the code of gender, evidences of “femininity” within the masculinist military through the ritualized style of the body in terms of military gender politics, the association of the doctrine of separate spheres within the military itself vis-à-vis gender roles and gender expressions, performances of gender in the courtroom, the idea of

“drag” as applying to military uniforms, and the perceived consequences of offending the masculinist and heterosexist symbolic military code. Finally, I have provided an analysis of non-normative gender practices that call into question the validity of this entire system of gender and show its “real” nature to be simulacra, or a “code” based on the “rule by simulacra of reality.”

Finally, I have analyzed different representations of Abu Ghraib and discuss images of gender as power. These representations range from leaked photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib, to Botero’s art, to images used by the advertising industry to promote a sort of Abu Ghraib, sado-masochistic fashion. Within this discussion I have

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shown that women have multiple use-values with regard to torture, and as “tortured” themselves.

This project is significant with regards to the discipline of sociology and also to women’s studies because I distinctively analyze these events in terms of gender, sexuality, and power. I like to think of this work as a continuation of my life-long passion of questioning power structures, finding out how they work, and learning how to dismantle them when they seem unfair and subjugating. This work highlights many power structures and shows how they function to reify cultural ideology and social practices.

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VITA

Name: Ryan Ashley Caldwell

Address: Texas A&M University, Department of Sociology 311 Academic Building 4351 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4351

Email Address: [email protected]

Education: B.A., Philosophy, Austin College 1999 M.A., Philosophy, Texas Tech University, 2002 Ph.D., Sociology with emphasis on social theory and cultural theory, Texas A&M University, 2007